Unique partnership sees Victoria students create music through computer code
In a hallway at South Park Elementary School in Victoria on Thursday, you could hear the sound of music coming from a classroom. The music was two months in the making.
“I am really proud,” said Cohen Monkman, a South Park Elementary School student.
“It was really fun,” said Marlo Pace, another student. “It was a different experience.”
Grade 4 and 5 students have been learning to code.
“We needed to introduce the students to a lot of the basics of how you write code and how a computer can only do exactly the things that you tell it to do,” said Daniel Brandes, artistic director for the school of music technology and creativity at the Victoria Conservatory of Music.
Instead of using conventional instruments, the class is creating music through technology.
“They’re learning about synthesis, panning, balance and creating envelopes,” said Brandes.
Approximately $15,000 in funding from the Telus Friendly Future Foundation was instrumental in providing students and the conservatory with the tools necessary to participate in the class, according to the foundation.
Cohen says the whole process was quite complicated but in the end worth it.
“I think it sounds pretty good,” said Cohen.
The school partnered with the Victoria Conservatory of Music using coding software called Sonic Pi.
“You can play it like a live instrument,” said Brandes.
“It seems so complicated, yet it’s simple,” said Willow Taves, a South Park Elementary School student. “It’s just small little steps.”
Willow and Marlo created their piece called "Haunted Dreams."
“We’re trying to make the code a bit creepy,” said Willow.
The results were all unique in their own way.
“You’re going to hear beeps and boops,” said Brandes.
For Brandes, it is not so much about creating chart-topping music.
“That’s about personal taste and that’s subjective and that’s not terribly interesting to me,” said Brandes.
Instead, this is about the process. “Were the students engaged in what they were making?” said Brandes. “Did they make something that they feel genuinely excited about?”
The students say yes and now they are hooked.
“I think I’m going to continue doing this, get better and improve,” said Cohen.
“It was amazing,” said Marlo.
“It was really cool to interact with the computer and build a really cool piece of music that we get to show our classmates,” said Willow.
All while being engaged, learning to code and being creative.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
Auston Matthews to miss second straight playoff game with Toronto Maple Leafs facing elimination
Auston Matthews will miss the Maple Leafs' must-win Game 6 against the Boston Bruins.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.