The Artists who Say Ni!: Incorporating the Python programming language into creative coding for the realisation of musical works

Drymonitis, Alexandros (2023) The Artists who Say Ni!: Incorporating the Python programming language into creative coding for the realisation of musical works. Doctoral thesis, Birmingham City University.

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Abstract

Even though Python is a very popular programming language with a wide range of applications, in the domain of music, specifically electronic music, it is much less used than other languages and programming environments that have been built explicitly for musical creation, such as SuperCollider, Pure Data, Csound, Max, and Chuck. Since 2010 a Python module for DSP called Pyo has been available. This module consists of a complete set of DSP algorithms, Unit Generators, filters, effects, and other tools for the creation of electronic music and sound, yet its community is rather limited. Being part of Python, this module can be combined with a big variety of native and external Python modules for musical or extra-musical tasks, facilitating the realisation of interdisciplinary artworks focusing on music and sound. Starting a creative journey with this module, I was led to more Pythonic techniques for tasks other than music, like mining tweets from Twitter or creating code poetry, which I incorporated into my musical activity. This practice-based research explores the field of the creation of musical works based on Python by focusing on three works. The first one is a live coding poetry opera where the libretto is written in Python. The second one is a live algorithmic composition for an acoustic ensemble based on input from Twitter. The last work is a combination of live coding with live patching on a hardware modular synthesiser system. The main objective of this thesis is to determine the creative potential of Python in music and mixed media art by posing questions that are answered through these works. By doing this, this research aims to provide a conceptual framework for artistic creation that can function as inspiration to other musicians and artists. The title of this thesis is based on one of the most popular lines of the Monty Python comedy troupe, “the Knights who say Ni!”, since the initial developer of the Python programming language, Guido van Rossum, gave this name to this language inspired by Monty Python.

Item Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Dates:
DateEvent
20 December 2021Submitted
4 January 2023Accepted
Uncontrolled Keywords: Music composition, electronic music, Python, computer programming, live coding, live patching, code poetry, data mining
Subjects: CAH11 - computing > CAH11-01 - computing > CAH11-01-04 - software engineering
CAH25 - design, and creative and performing arts > CAH25-02 - performing arts > CAH25-02-02 - music
Divisions: Doctoral Research College > Doctoral Theses Collection
Faculty of Arts, Design and Media > Royal Birmingham Conservatoire
Depositing User: Jaycie Carter
Date Deposited: 05 Apr 2023 11:07
Last Modified: 05 Apr 2023 11:07
URI: https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/14314

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