Pärt inspired musical live coding etude performed in Scratch

Movement 1 -- Pärt (2010) is an excerpt from a suite of live-coding pieces, Scratch Etudes, exploring the live, interactive coding capabilities of the Scratch visual programming environment (http://scratch.mit.edu). Taking inspiration from the musical organization of Arvo Pärt's Stabat Mater and a live coding performance by Andrew Sorensen within his Impromptu software,

Movement 1 -- Pärt utilizes live manipulation of visual code chunks, blocks, lists, and variables through mouse and keyboard control in a creative exploration of the Aeolian mode. An additional minor pentatonic solo layer was performed live over the drone using an IchiBoard sensor interface (http://bit.ly/ichiboard) developed by Mark Sherman of the Engaging Computing Group at University of Massachusetts, Lowell. The IchiBoard enables melodic and rhythmic performance of the solo line through a button and linear potentiometer with volume controlled by the z-axis of the built-in accelerometer.

Scratch Etudes was conceived as a set of live coding examples to share with students enrolled in an undergraduate general education course, "Sound Thinking," offered at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and for use in workshops with middle- and high-school students in computational music. Originally developed for use by children by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab, Scratch has proven useful as a platform for engaging children in creating computational music, musical live coding, and music controller design.

Code and live performance - Alex Ruthmann

More on Scratch: http://scratch.mit.edu
Music with Scratch: http://scratchmusic.org & http://performamatics.org
IchiBoard info: http://www.cs.uml.edu/ecg/index.php/IchiBoard/IchiBoard

A version of this performance was published in the Winter 2011 Computer Music Journal DVD: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/computer_music_journal/v035/35.4.notes.html

Category:

Education

Tags:

• music
• Scratch (musician)