I liked the comparison of different live coding platforms to languages, and I agreed with the author that the platform/language you work with will heavily dictate how you approach things. When I was working with Cascade for my research project, I found myself leaning towards making simple HTML shapes as that was what Cascade afforded me on the surface. With Hydra, I found myself making heavy use of the oscillators as it was what is available. Could I make anything I visualized in my imagination in both platforms? Probably! But they would take so much work, and in a way, being limited by the constraints/affordances of Cascade/Hydra allowed me to think more of making the most out of what I am given, instead of being forced to answer a question as abstract as ‘make anything you want’.

I found it funny how the author emphasized the ephemeral nature of live coding, especially the “live coders [that] celebrate not saving their code”. In our class, I found myself and many of my classmates “pre-gramming” (as called by the author) as much as we could to make the performance as smooth as possible. Perhaps this is just a side-effect of being new to the platform, or having little knowledge, but I’m still fearful of doing the ‘live’ part of live coding, and would rather trust the pre-gramming approach.

As the author compares computers to instruments, I wonder then if a syntax error in the live coding performance could be treated similarly to a mistake as playing the wrong note? However, I think the comparison is not fair for both sides. I find live coding platforms like TidalCycles to be an abstraction layer between the creator, and the music itself. With a guitar or piano, there is no such layer between the creator and the music, and you can easily map your physical sense of self ( of your fingers/hands ) to the music being produced. There is a big physical disconnect with live coding platforms as it depends heavily on visuals to make sure that you’re playing the right notes. You have to look at the code, process that information with your eyes, and then further process what that block of code will sound like. Live coding loses access to one of the best features of being human — your proprioception, that even with my eyes closed I can make music just by feel if I play an instrument well enough. I suppose you could argue that you can type with your eyes closed but I feel that it’s a bit of a stretch for making music…