Turning code into music with Sonic Pi

Discover Sonic Pi and SuperCollider for creating music through code.

Jessica Garson, senior developer advocate, sat down with the All Things Open team to share how she discovered that code could do more than light up shoes or send tweets, it could create music that would eventually take her on tour across Europe and Asia.

Jessica’s journey into live coding music started with a simple revelation: Her code could make sound happen. That discovery led her to Sonic Pi, as she dove deeper, she discovered that Sonic Pi runs on Super Collider, another powerful language for audio synthesis. 

What began as experimentation turned into a performance practice, with Jessica now playing shows about once a month and having toured internationally. Her story highlights how creativity and code intersect in unexpected ways, and how following your curiosity about what code can do might lead you to live your dreams in ways you never anticipated. 

What is Sonic Pi?

Sonic Pi is a free, open source live coding environment that turns your computer into a music creation tool where you compose and perform by writing code in real time.

• Learn more about Sonic Pi: https://sonic-pi.net/

What is SuperCollider?

SuperCollider is an open source programming language and real-time audio synthesis engine designed for sound creation, algorithmic composition, and live coding performances.

• Learn more about SuperCollider: https://supercollider.github.io/

Get started with these tutorials

• Generating music with Sonic Pi (By Jessica Garson)
• Harnessing screams with Tidal Looper (By Jessica Garson)

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