I feel that the concept of live coding heavily engages with the idea of free improvisation, a term that appears frequently in research. The contrast and tension between the perspectives of Deadmau5 and Derek Bailey create fascinating discussions within the live coding community, especially the debate between pre-planned performances and starting entirely from scratch. Because of the trade-off between spontaneity and reliability, the notion of free improvisation becomes essential in capturing the “liveness” of a performance since improvisation can exist in both pre-scripted and freestyle live coding contexts. Hence, the definition of the “liveness” becomes a subjective belief during the performance.

It is also interesting to consider the role of the computer. I think it makes sense to treat the computer as a musical instrument, where, instead of plucking a guitar string, we are typing code to produce sound. However, what’s even more interesting is the idea of the computer as a musician. The logic embedded in code sets the rules by which sound is generated, whether random or pre-defined. Because live coding does not necessarily follow traditional music theory, it allows for a type of free improvisation that breaks away from conventional constraints, enabling the computer to function both as instrument and performer.