Tag: Music

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This is part of a series getting to know the people in the MusiCoders Slack group who are both professional musicians and professional software engineers.

Photo credit: Nancy Morla

What is your current programming and musical life?

→ I’ll start a front-end bootcamp next week. Aiming at cybersecurity once I have enough web dev experience.
→ I was a studio musician on occasion before the pandemic. Nowadays I’m a music reviewer, curator and marketer at a record label, and I play my instruments in my free time.

What is your primary instrument and what age did you start learning it? Did you study any other instruments, either as a child or an adult?

→ Viola. I started at 16, but had been playing the violin since I was 9.
→ I started taking piano lessons at 17 and kept at it throughout my college years.

What was your experience of learning a musical instrument, and how did it differ from your experience in learning to program?→ My learning process for musical instruments wasn’t that self-aware in the beginning. The meta-cognition required to make practice sessions more efficient started developing at about 17, but only consolidated during my college years. At that time, I learned things like:

• Documenting and tracking my progress.

• Working in sync with my body and mind, and not against them (best times of the day to practice, the importance of rest, mental practice etc.)

• Approaching challenges/errors as a laboratory of problem solving instead of mindless repetition

That very meta-cognition was a game-changer when I started learning to program. Making progress tangible is a great way to cope with frustration. Things feel difficult, but doable.

How old were you when you started programming? Why did you start programming?

→ I was 26 and really interested in electronic/algorithmic composition. So I chose to do my master’s degree in those fields. There was a natural need for automation in them, so I learned languages like Pure Data, LISP, and SuperCollider.

Do you have any specialisms in your musical performance?

→ Not really. I was an orchestral musician back in the day, but I decided to focus more on composition.

Do you have any specialisms in your programming?

→ I’m still a beginner in web dev, so I haven’t specialized on anything yet. A lot of focus on JavaScript right now, though.

Do you hold degrees in music, computer science, or something else?

→ Bachelor’s in both viola performance and composition. Master’s in composition.

What influence, if any, does your musical background have on your programming, and vice versa?

→ Playing in ensembles and orchestras gave me team skills that I’ll probably make good use of as a professional programmer.
→ Things like discipline, patience, and tolerance to frustration are inevitable parts of a musician’s life. They’re transferable to any career, but programming needs lots of them.
→ Algorithmic composition has a good balance of creativity and logical thinking. In a way, I was already thinking like a programmer before learning any languages. But programming really helped me develop my own style as a composer.

Aside from music and software, what other hobbies or pursuits do you have?

→ Foreign languages
→ Salsa dancing

What would you say to a musician considering a career change into programming?

→ If you’ve developed the mental toughness to become a professional musician, you already have a lot of what it takes to be a programmer.
→ Your brain is probably more trained to think like a programmer than you realize.

And finally, what advice would you give your younger self when you started programming?

→ Don’t freak out so much about the math part. Everything can be re-learned through the meta-cognition tools you developed as a musician.
→ Don’t wait so much to take the leap. You’ll never be “100% ready”.
→ Find a community as soon as you can.

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This is part of a series getting to know the people in the MusiCoders Slack group who are both professional musicians and professional software engineers.

What is your current programming and musical life?

I think of my working life as a 50/50 split between tech and music. I clearly can’t do as much as a full-timer in either field but I find dividing my time interesting and refreshing.

I work for Platform.sh as a staff engineer, designing and writing web API services, scripts and tools (in Go and PHP). The company originated in France but it allowed remote working from the beginning, and has developers all around the world.

I’m also the second violinist in the Ligeti Quartet (since 2010) and I do some freelance work in and around London – mostly chamber music, orchestras and sessions.

What is your primary instrument and what age did you start learning it? Did you study any other instruments, either as a child or an adult?

I learned violin and piano from the age of 7, and violin took over at university.

What was your experience of learning a musical instrument, and how did it differ from your experience in learning to program?

Learning music was very structured. In music you often go to a 1-1 tutor every week from an early age – imagine if you had that for programming! Maybe people do these days. I learned code by writing it and looking things up every step of the way, first via books and later via Google.

How old were you when you started programming? Why did you start programming?

My dad taught science and computing in my school. So I started probably around 8, first doing silly things in BASIC, and then a bit later making websites in HTML and a bit of C or Perl, and later PHP. Many tables were involved. It was a hobby until late in my degree when I started doing it for money too.

Do you have any specialisms in your musical performance?

Contemporary string quartet music. The “contemporary” part is not a genre, it usually just means the composer is still alive, and rehearsals are often a collaboration or at least a discussion. “String quartet” is also not a genre but it does seem to be a particularly complex and rewarding occupation. I studied a bit of Baroque violin and I love that music but it hasn’t featured in my professional career.

Do you have any specialisms in your programming?

Backend web development. Mostly this involves designing and writing API servers and clients. I currently work in Go, PHP, a little bit of Python, a tiny bit of JavaScript, and plenty of shell scripts. Like any developer I enjoy new, greenfield projects but I have done a lot of work on preserving backwards compatibility for “legacy” APIs and tools.

Do you hold degrees in music, computer science, or something else?

An undergrad degree in Music followed by two years at a conservatoire.

What influence, if any, does your musical background have on your programming, and vice versa?

Musical work is often really independent, and I like to think that makes me a more self-directed programmer than I might be otherwise. I’m comfortable with not being able to understand something, and with learning by doing. In the other direction, I think the business and project management ideas I’ve learned from tech are quite helpful in music – what to do and what not to do. And it really helps in both fields to know how to use a spreadsheet.

Aside from music and software, what other hobbies or pursuits do you have?

I have a toddler and that’s plenty for now.

What would you say to a musician considering a career change into programming?

I still do both, so I might not be the best person to ask. I think getting into open source can help; it means you can learn how to collaborate with other developers before you even have a job, and those collaborative “soft skills” are the most important ones.

Both of my careers can be wonderful and really hard on different days. But the killer feature of the tech industry is the potential for ultra-flexible remote work.

And finally, what advice would you give your younger self when you started programming?

Slow down – take a little bit more time to design and research first, and write tests, and leave the code a bit later. But also, feel freer to venture into technologies you’re unfamiliar with, it never takes as long to learn as you think.

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We’ve got an exciting year ahead of us in the Cambridge Philharmonic. Not only do we have a great season of concerts, but we’ve introduced a learning & development plan for the string section as well.

A blank notebook on a wooden desk.

Goals

  1. Improved intonation on tonic and dominant chords.
  2. Playing in the same part of the bow as the front desk

We will be releasing more video and written content throughout the year relating to these goals as well as holding special workshops.

Videos

We will also be releasing a series of eight short videos covering the following topics:

  • Introducing Goal 1: Tonic and Dominant Intonation
  • Introducting Goal 2: Playing in the same part of the bow as the front desk
  • Orchestral practise tips for busy people
  • No accidental bow noises
  • Whose fingering to use?
  • Quick page turns
  • Passing messages back
  • Essential stringed instrument maintenance

Retrospectives

One of the techniques we have learned from the software industry is to have a post-concert retrospective where we ask questions like

  • “What went well?”
  • “What could have been better?”
  • “What should we do differently next time?”

The answers to these questions are then used to guide the preparation for the next concert.

What’s next?

Keep an eye on the YouTube DeskNotes playlist, this blog and social media as we will be releasing the videos Saturday mornings at 10am starting 7 September 2019.

Cambridge Philharmonic Twitter

Paula Muldoon Twitter

#DeskNotes

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Me at Carnegie Hall

As many of you know, I am both a violinist and a software engineer. I have a Masters degree in violin performance and have played in 20 countries, and a couple years ago I did a programming bootcamp and have been working for 2 years as a software engineer. In my holidays I go on tours (Carnegie Hall last year, Paris this summer) so I have to keep up a high standard of violin playing while also holding down a 9–5 job. So here are my tips for keeping in good musical shape with a busy lifestyle!

1. What to practice?
 I take notes on my phone during rehearsal of tricky passages that need
 work. Then when I start practising, I have a hit list so I don’t faff around wondering what to do.
 
2. Intonation
I’ve used The Tuning CD extensively myself and with my orchestra. It plays overtones so you can really precisely determine your intonation — incredibly eye-opening, depressing at first, but ultimately very cathartic.
 
3. Rhythm
 I also practice frequently with a metronome and it’s something I highly
 recommend. Also if you think you’re playing in time, try recording yourself
 and play along. Metronomes are especially useful in 3/4 and slow 6/8 as
 those are difficult time signatures to keep in tempo.
 
4. Tracking practice
 I use a very fancy Paperblanks journal with a nice pen to record every day
 my start/end times, what I’ve covered, and what I’ve learned. Every month I
 read over what I’ve accomplished that month and set goals for the next
 month (including number of hours to practice). It’s important to have a
 plan with practising so you can tell if you’re being effective.
 
5. Recording
 Recording oneself is SO useful! A smartphone has a plenty good microphone,
 and you can hear so much more when you’re not busy playing. I suggest
 especially before practising rhythm/intonation to record yourself as a
 baseline comparison and then when you’ve finished practising.
 
6. How much to practice
 I set monthly goals based on what’s realistic with my work schedule. While
 practising is about much more than just time, you can’t have good practice
 if you don’t carve out the time to begin with. It’s a lot less than the 4
 hours/day I used to practice as a student but I’ve also become much more
 effective so I get more done in less time. That being said, 15 minutes a
 day is infinitely better than no minutes a day, especially if you have a
 goal and are focused and disciplined. 15 minutes/day 5 days a week is 5
 hours a month!
 
7. Resources
 The Bulletproof Musician blog/podcast has interesting ideas on practising –
 check out the interview with Catherine Cho on how improving a sense of pulse.
Modacity is a practice app built by a French horn player. Built in recording capacity and lots of oher great features.
The Tuning CD — Spotify
The Tuning CD — Apple Music

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I’ve recently rocketed my music setup into the 21st century and I thought I’d share with you the tech I’m using now!

Tablet & Stylus

Essential for reading music. I use the iPad pro 12.9″ with the Apple pencil. 
Benefits:

  • Save the trees — no more printing music
  • Easy to mark up in different colours
  • Also easy to erase — no more residual pencil marks
  • Easy to read in dim light
  • Entire music library in one lightweight tablet (yes, they are light now)

Learning curve:

  • None, really

Pedal

Must-have to turn the pages. I use the Donner (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Donner-Bluetooth-Rechargeable-Reading-Controller/dp/B01MZICTQV)

Benefits

  • No more difficult page turns

Keyboard

I use a midi keyboard to input notes into Musescore. Great for composing quickly! Doesn’t do rhythms but the pitch saves you a lot of time. Really portable as well — took it on a transatlantic flight iwth no problem.

I use M-Audio Keystation Mini 32 II, Compact Portable 32-Key USB/MIDI Keyboard Controller with Synth-Action Velocity-Sensitive Keys (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00IWRJSE2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

Benefits

  • Easily plugs into MacBook
  • Draws power from MacBook
  • 32 keys but has a big range as you can hit the plus or minus button to move your octave around

Modacity — Practice App

Home

I use this app every day with my practice and I think I’ve barely scratched the surface of what it can do. Shoutout to Andrew Hitz at The Entrepreneurial Musician podcast for introducing me to this!

Benefits

  • Make practice lists
  • Record yourself easily
  • Metronome/tuner
  • Tracks time spent practicing
  • Tracks practice streaks

ForScore — for reading music

I got this app several years ago for reading music, back when it was half the price. Not sure I’d buy it now as there might be cheaper alternatives, but I’m very pleased with it nonetheless.

PiaScore — IMSLP app

Great for downloading music from the wonderful free IMSLP library.

Musescore — for composing

Like Sibelius, but free. I compose on my MacBook Air but there is an iPad app as well which I haven’t tried.