In February of 2020, the teacher assigned the students in my Computer Science class at Seoul Scholars International to create a melody using a website called Earsketch. We were to apply the coding skills and functions that we had learned over the last quarter. The project was meaningful in that it creatively and accurately assessed students' knowledge and learnings over the subject.

While it was a daunting project as we only had “intro-level” coding skills, it was also an exciting new experience as we were “publishing” a song. The song ｒｅｑｕｉｒｅd a division into multiple sections: Intro, Chorus, Verse1, Chorus, Transition, Verse2, and Chorus. I started off by setting the Tempo of my melody, 110 beats per minute, assuming that high BPM would convey a feeling of liveliness and excitement. I then chose 12 variables that stored short song clips, -- or values of information -- in a ｓｃｒｉｐｔ. I then utilized the 12 variables to insert and combine the variable clips with the “fitMedia()” function. "FitMedia()" is a function that initializes and operates the variables with the inputted demands of the users like beginning measure and ending measure.

One of the ｒｅｑｕｉｒｅments for composing a song was using “for loop.” “For loop” is a control statement that enabled me to perform the assigned rhythms and sounds for a designated number of times instead of guiding the wanted manuals repeatedly. The control statement further enhanced the quality of the song by supporting the overall flow and vibe through the repetition of sounds.

Last but not least, I ended the project by giving it a little side-note information about the author, ｓｃｒｉｐｔ name, and deｓｃｒｉｐｔion. 

The overall process of composing music using computer coding skills ｒｅｑｕｉｒｅd in-depth understanding of the subject. It gave me some stress and anxiety to rewrite and run the code over and over again until I made it work. However, apart from all the stressors, the experience of composing music using coding skills left me with a deep sense of satisfaction. As the generation of computer-based society is coming, coding skills and online resources could have a wide-ranging impact, even on music composition. This project has allowed me to get a glimpse of it.

Minjung Kwon
9th Grade
Seoul Scholars International