Adventures in Raspberry Pi, 2nd Edition

THE RASPBERRY PI can be many things—a standalone computer, a games machine and even a music synthesizer. The way we as humans interact with computers has changed over the years. Computers are no longer just devices on which to create text files or play computer games. They are also communication devices, transporters and musical instruments!

Creating music using computers is not a new idea. Computer music has its roots in electronics, and a growing number of musicians are turning to code to create new sounds. Chiptune is a style of music that uses sound chips from old computers and consoles from the 1980s and 1990s, like the Nintendo Game Boy. Pixelh8 (www.pixelh8.co.uk/music/) and 2xAA (http://brkbrkbrk.com) are chiptune artists and computer programmers, who program their music before it is performed. Other computer music programmers prefer to code their music live, feeling the atmosphere around them and responding to it with sound. They are called live coders. The band Meta-eX (http://meta-ex.com) are an example of a live coding group who perform at events, creating their code live on a big screen so the audience can see it as it happens (see Figure 7-1).

Your Raspberry Pi has a headphone/speaker jack port so that you can listen to sounds. You also have a keyboard and mouse that allow you to type code. In this adventure, you will put those features to good use by creating music ...