Live Coding Blog

What I found most interesting about this reading was how much weight it gives to really small things. Tiny timing shifts that are almost impossible to notice unless you are listening closely. The idea that a groove can feel expressive not because it changes dramatically, but because it is slightly off in very specific ways, made me rethink what “emotion” in music actually looks like

I also liked how the text treats musical communication as something that does not need to say anything clearly or directly. It feels more like people getting in sync with each other than sending messages back and forth. Groove becomes a shared sense of time, where musicians are constantly adjusting to one another and responding at a level that is felt more than understood

The discussion of microtiming and the body stood out to me too. A perfectly quantized beat can feel strange because it removes the trace of a human presence, but the reading also makes it clear that this absence can be intentional and meaningful. What matters is not whether a rhythm is human or electronic, but what kind of relationship it creates with the listener.

Overall, the piece made me more aware of how much expression lives in small imperfections, and how being slightly off can be what makes something feel alive in the first place

With the very limited experience I have in making music, this reading made me reflect on a short composition I did for another class called Music Devices. We had to create a piece in Ableton Live, and since I don’t really know music theory, my process was mostly trial and error, trying different sounds and instruments until something sounded decent. Even though the final result wasn’t “bad,” it didn’t really evoke much emotion for me. I feel like this may be the lack of embodiment that the reading was talking about. 

The discussion of African and African-American groove-based music helped me think differently about why some music feels more alive to me than others. I listen to a lot of Afrobeat, and this reading made me more aware of how repetition, rhythm, and subtle timing shifts contribute to its energy and emotional impact. It made me realize that what I often respond to in music might not be complexity or melody, but the sense of feel created through timing. I think the reading will mostly change how I listen to music, making me more attentive to small rhythmic details I previously took for granted.

While I’m neither a regular listener of Afrobeats nor a musician, the moment I hear it I want to move my body. For me, it’s not the melody, but it’s the steady, undeniable pulse that feels so alive. The reading provided an explanation for this on how Afro-diasporic music is built on multiple interlocking rhythmic patterns that make it inseparable from dance. Microtiming further explains how musicians place notes slightly early or late relative to the strict pulse, delivers the musicians feel to the listerners. This subtle human variance is what turns the static rhythm into a groove. Therefore one can conclude that the human presence itself makes the music feel alive.

This led me to a fascinating question as we shift in class to creating our own beats. We’re building beats not by striking a drum, but by coding. Once the pattern is programmed, it’s static unless we go back and edit it. So, can a beat made this way ever truly feel alive? Can we even create something as subtle and human as microtiming from a keyboard? The reading’s conclusion points toward an exciting answer. Artists aren’t just trying to perfectly imitate human timing with machines. Instead, they are forging a new continuum between body and technology. Expression no longer comes only from a musician’s hands on an instrument, but from the creative dialogue between human intention and digital process. I believe this is where my experience with live coding would fit in. Performing with my own programmed beats, I realize that making them feel alive doesn’t rely on sound alone. The interaction becomes key: by showing the lines of code that create the rhythm, the audience witnesses the architecture of the groove. This transparency can turn a static pattern into a dynamic, embodied experience.

After reading this, the concept that stuck with me most is “thinking in public.” In my experience as a student and a developer, coding is usually taught as a semi-private, stressful process where you hide your messy pseudo code and only show the final, polished result. The idea of projecting your raw thoughts and errors onto a wall for an audience to see feels like a massive shift. It turns programming from a rigid engineering task into something more like a conversation. I like the way the text describes it as “unthinking” the way we usually work. It makes the computer feel less like a cold tool and more like a creative partner you’re collaborating with in real time.

The most interesting takeaway for me was the critique of “seamless” technology. We’re so used to interfaces being invisible and easy that we forget there is a programmed system actually directing our behavior. By showing the code, live coders are essentially stripping away that illusion. It’s a bit of a reality check. It makes me realize that when we don’t understand the software we use, we’re just passive consumers. This perspective reclaims the idea of being a “user” as someone who actually has autonomy. It’s definitely made me rethink the relationship I have with my own laptop and the software I run on it every day.

Microtiming Studies

The concept of studying microtiming and other techniques often found in African and African-American music in to uncover the patterns that create the groove, rhythm and embodiement felt like looking at the science behind something I’ve always thought of as purely emotional. At the start of the reading I kept questioning whether music, a tool used to convey emotion, can be broken down in terms of technical terms to capture what makes it human and expressive. As someone with a short-lived history with music theory I was aware that it can all be broken down to uncover what makes up what we hear everyday, though never thought about what part of this technical dissection can be used to point out the humanness of it all. The ‘microscopic sensitivity to musical timing’ that is used by African musicians to create ‘expressive timing’ in their music was something that made sense once I read it, yet an attribute that I never thought about. A human can never reach the mechanical perfection of a machine, which sounds like a flaw until you start thinking of it as the foundation that creates expressive and meaningful beat. The emphasis on the fact that these slight shifts aren’t random, they’re embodied and part of a long cultural practice made me rethink how much of musical feel comes from the body and not just intention. Applying that to the live coding that we will be doing in class helped me understand where our personal expression can come into live coding. Evaluating a line or typing in the code for a beat when it feels right, even if it’s slightly delayed or early will contribute to creating a performance that feels personal and expressive rather than mechanic. It’s not about perfecting what we practice or what we had in mind, it’s about feeling what we are performing on a level where embodying the music is possible, giving space for the human body to be integrated into our works.

Here is my first attempt at live coding using Hydra!!