Music can be functions too: an introduction to live-coding in Haskell

Length: 20 minutes

Room: Room 2

Abstract

The talk will introduce the audience to live coding music in Haskell through the TidalCycles framework. The goal is to demonstrate how functional programming can be applied to make music in untraditional ways, and to introduce the perspective that music-making is a model for understanding function composition. The talk will also briefly touch on the Algorave movement, events where people dance to music generated on the fly by algorithms by performers on stage. The talk aims to motivate that learning through playing is valuable, and that there are interesting connections between concepts and patterns in the musical domain and in the more traditional software development domain.

Day & time

06 Wednesday, 9:20 – 9:40 AM

Intended audience

The talk does not assume any experience in any particular technology or paradigm. In fact, there are tales of people being introduced to (functional) programming through live coding music, so really any background is welcome. People interested in playing with technology, creative computation, music composition, functional programming, or anything in between will likely be the ones benefiting most from this talk.

• Ulrik Antoniussen Halmøy

  Ulrik is a software developer, currently working on algorithmic journalism in NTB. He has a background in music, and enjoys working with code in a variety of mediums.