Video: Livecoding A Musical Performance

What do you call someone who programs an entire set live with lines of code? A coderist? We’re not sure, but either way this TED performance by Andrew Sorensen at TEDXQUT is pretty impressive (although it’s a bit slow to start – fast forward to about 6:00 for it to get interesting).

The language that Andrew is using in the video is called Extempore, designed by programmer Benjamin Swift specifically for livecoding of multimedia experiences. Learn more about it and try it for yourself on the official Extempore site.

While this shows a lot of potential for some great applications in the art performance world, we’re not convinced you’ll see it in a club anytime soon – DJs and producers already look like they’re checking their email – this guy has an extreme version of Serato Face.

Andrew Sorensenbenjamin swiftextemporelive performancelivecodingtedted talks
Comments (13)
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  • learn coding

    Amazing article. This is really interesting and helpful for my business. Thanks a lot for sharing your blog with us.

  • Sunset Mushroom

    Wow. This is the ultimate expression of Electronic Music; creating and manipulating sequences in real time via code.

  • chulini

    The worst (or best) of all is that he is using “scheme”, the most awful programing language I ever used in my life.

  • Frydac

    Im more impressed by his vi text editing skills and ergonomic split mechanical keyboard, than by his generated music..

  • DavidAlexa

    I think it’s called a “programmer”

  • Josh gledhill

    MAX MSP ALL THE WAY 😛

  • Sebastian Cavolina

    JUST BRILLIANT! <3
    the fact that he can do all that without a daw puts everyone else to shame, it's like a giant "get on my level BEYOTCHES" for all the commercial producers. this guy is plain AWESOME

  • BBQSPY

    Reminds me of ChuK! ^_^

  • Mr. Knowitall

    This is as exciting as watching paint dry. It reminds me of how much of a failure “math” rock was.

  • Jay

    If you actually listen to what Kurzweil is saying under the track..its terrifying

  • thejone

    Ah yes I’m familiar with this code.
    it’s the “Virgin 4 Life” syntax. =)

    • Hampus Sjöberg

      Yes you know all about it right?

  • Tyrone Kuhn

    WOO BRISBANE!