So I found this program last year, Sonic Pi, and while I'm not any good at it but keep trying I wanted to share it with you. I think it's really cool because I love music and most everyone does. This is simply another way for you to get excited about coding while producing fun, interesting, annoying for your parents, worthwhile content. HINT - Parents, Invest in Headphones!! Why do I say worthwhile?? Well, while you're inside the program whether following the tutorials or just messing around you'll be learning all about text-based code....it's structure, it's placement, it's values. Plus, with music, there are a ton of math concepts at play and that's exactly what you'll be editing to make the music happen. Think rate, pitch, frequency. It's all math and quite mind-bending....see way below for more of the math info.
Parents and Educators....check out this article. It's really informative and interesting.
Exercise #1 - Go through the Tutorial. This is more for older students or younger students work through it with a parent. Code is very very specific and if one command is out of order or incorrect it will not work correctly. But that is code and that's why we're learning it.
This is really fun and I would love to hear any of your creations so please post them.
Here are a few more ideas for all of you music creators out there. Using DAW's to create music....or Digital Audio Workstations. In a Nutshell, using computers to create music....and it's been going on for years.
Do a simple google search for Beginner DAW's if you are interested.
And of course, there are Little Bits. We've used this synthesizer at camp before and it's certainly a hit with the kids. It's using circuits to synthesize music. They are expensive but really cool!!
For all you musical or mathematical geniuses out there....check out this video. It's really interesting to see (and hear) the connection of math and music.