In this assignment you will program a multipart piece of music of your choice using ABC Notation (http://www.abcnotation.com), which you will use via a website called Pencil Code (http://pencilcode.net). The computing side of this assignment introduces you to another way to encode music, and the music side will expand your knowledge of basic music theory (at least for some of you).
As an example of what can be produced with this software, please go to Pencil Code using the following URL:
To play the music after clicking the above link, click the big arrow key in the middle of the screen. We will obviously discuss the coding techniques used in this program in class.
Remember that all aspects of this project except responding to the reflective questions are to be done with your partner.
Begin by choosing a simple song that has multiple parts. You may use a choral or other standard piece of music as the Three Kings example does, or you may use a song that is performed as a round.
Go to one of the following URLs to
access the code template you are to use for this assignment. Choose the appropriate template based on the number of parts you are going to program.
Click the down arrow next to the Save button and click Copy and Save As... to save a copy of the template to your own account.
Using the template as a starting point and the Pencil Code and ABC Notation Cheat Sheet to help you, code the parts for your song as explained in class using the sing function that we’ve provided.
remember that the first parameter to the sing function is the number of the keyboard to play on
the second parameter is a string containing the ABC notation for the notes to play
Your song need not be long, and you don’t need to code the entire song. Coding four or five phrases that require a variety of ABC Notation techniques will be sufficient.
As you work, write notes on what you did so that someone else (or even yourself a few months from now) can reproduce what you did. Take notes on things that you did and then undid, too, so that you do not forget the things you tried that you don’t feel worked out well.
Follow the directions below to submit your assignment.
For this assignment you and your partner are to submit one Pencil Code program.
When you’re finished coding your song, click the Share button. Then click the copy icon next to the Share Code entry in the Shared dialog box. This is the URL of your program that you must submit so that we can grade it. Save that URL somewhere on your computer so that you can paste it into the reflection form in response to the appropriate question.
Answer the reflective questions in the Google Form at:
This assignment will be evaluated on the following criteria.
For the Program (15 points)
Is the song properly notated in ABC notation?
Is your code clear and arranged logically?
Did you add comments to the program to identify the major sections?
For the Notes on what you did (5 points)
Clarity — Could someone else reproduce your work from your notes?
Comprehensiveness — Could you yourself reproduce your own work 6 months from now?
For your responses to the Reflective Questions (5 points)
Thoroughness — Did
you think about the various aspects of this assignment and their relation to music and computing?
Effort — Did you leave this until the last minute or is it clear that you thought about what you wanted to write and put some effort into doing the writing?
Professionalism — Was your writing and its formatting, grammar, spelling, etc. done professionally?
Additional Information on the Three Kings Example
Just FYI, the music that the Pencil Code example at the beginning of this write-up encodes is the first part of the Kings’ Entrance from Amahl and the Night Visitors (Wikipedia link) by Gian Carlo Menotti. It was the first opera ever written specifically for television, was first broadcast on NBC at Christmastime in 1951, and featured the incredible boy soprano Chet Allen. If you’re interested, the original choral score for this excerpt from the opera can be found here (PDF file). You can play that score using the audio control below. You can see the fully staged production of this part of the opera
here (YouTube link to 1978 production).
