Hello Csounders,
We are using Claude. But, in class, I have had success with Gemini (just winging it - making MIDI instruments in front of students).
Back in the day, when I did these initial experiments with John ffitch (on his birthday), with ChatGPT, it was not that good. I have not tried ChatGPT lately. I am sure it is much better.
Now try giving it audio and asking for code to reproduce it.
Prof. Victor Lazzarini
Maynooth University
Ireland
No, but I’ve been wondering about it.
Prof. Victor Lazzarini
Maynooth University
Ireland
It is absolutely changing the way I teach Csound at Berklee. I hope to discuss some of this at LAC (if accepted there) and at NIME (waiting to hear there) and at ICSC (once that gets announced.
I have a feeling that AI and Csound will be a big issue at this year’s conference.
i am wondering:
what is learning then?
and what is the communication with the AI? giving orders?
Steven put together a CLAUDE.md file that should help make Claude even more effective.
https://github.com/kunstmusik/csound-ai-reference/blob/main/CLAUDE.md
Just place it in the root workspace directory and away you go.
I am still reflecting on what I teach, how I teach it, what I need to teach, and how I evaluate assignments. A semester ago, I had students follow and redo Rory’s excellent videos on making CABBAGE plugins. Now—I wonder. They can ask Claude to create the plugin and then request Claude to explain how it was made and how it works. Asking for reviews and analyses of Claude’s code is very helpful and insightful. Claude is a pretty amazing “tutor.” But, have my students truly learned how to do things independently, or have they just learned how to get things done? I am learning a lot. When I ask my comp class students to listen to Chowning and Varese and analyze their work, I learn a ton from their (ChatGPT-written) essays. I ask… “Did you at least read this?” It’s pretty great. Last semester in class, I showed them the three lines of CABBAGE code needed to support “presets” in a Csound instrument. I guess no one was paying attention, because the following week, all their assignments failed—they were filled with for loops and if-else statements, none of which worked at that time. They had all asked AI to do the assignment, and they all received the same AI mistake. Last week, I finished teaching how to MIDIfy some Csound TOOTS and manual instruments, but they still weren’t remembering to add MIDI envelopes or set ctrlinits. So I said, “Hey Gemini, make me a working Csound MIDI synth with filters, controllers, and a good-sounding global reverb using the freeverb opcode.” In less than two minutes, I played the working example for them. Oh no! Oh well. How do I teach with this? What should I assign? How do I grade? And I have many other stories… I’m sure you do, too. Michael Gogins, Victor Lazarini, and Iain McCurdy might be proud of my new Csound web apps, which include buttons, sliders, 18 instruments, interactive particle flocking graphics—all written with Dr. C in one afternoon and evening. It even builds the webpage with versions for laptops and iPhones. Crazy. (I asked the AI to improve this message before sending.). In the middle of the night, when I am up working around the clock, I now get messages from my Stanford collaborator’s “digital twin” (Mateo Larrea) reminding me that I have earned a rest because I have been working so hard and that I should get some sleep." (He is making a digital twin of me to take over my office hours for me ;-). My website was lost and so, in two days, Claude rebuilt it for me and helped me to deploy it - step by step (http://richardboulanger.com) It is way too long, and way too wordy (like this message) but there are tributes in there to Barry Vercoe, F. Richard Moore, Max Mathews, john ffitch, Victor Lazzarini, and many of my amazing students like Aman Jagwani. Soon there will be something about Steven Yi, Rory Walsh, Michael Gogins, Joachin Heintz, Iain McCurdy, and many others, too.
Steven’s examples are really great. WOW. And this project is fantastic and helpful. I do hope that others will be added to inspire us and to help Claude, too. WOW.
Thanks, Steven. These are nice. I have added them to my Claude-generated WebApp, which showcases your previous examples. waveform and spectral displays, keyboard, and live MIDI in. For class this week? Not sure yet if I want to fully go here with them - maybe? I am now adding a dozen more of my MIDI models and then possibly some other things - learning synthesis?