Files to support PhD thesis - Choosers: A Visual Programming Language for Algorithmic Music Composition by Non-Programmers

This thesis focuses on the design of Choosers, a prototype algorithmic programming system centred around a new abstraction (of the same name) designed to allow non-programmers access to algorithmic music composition methods. Algorithmic composition typically involves structural elements such as indeterminism, parallelism, choice, multi-choice, recursion, weighting, and looping. There are powerful existing tools for manipulating these and other elements of music. However, while these systems give great compositional power to musicians who are also skilled programmers, many musicians who are not also expert programmers find these tools inaccessible and difficult to understand and use. This thesis presents the design and evaluation of a prototype visual programming language designed to allow structural elements of the kind involved in algorithmic music composition to be readily visualised and manipulated, while making little or no demand on programming ability. This system, called Choosers, centres around a novel non-standard programming abstraction (the Chooser) which controls indeterminism, parallelism, choice, multi-choice, nesting, weighting, and looping. Initially, a Cognitive Dimensions of Notations review of a representative selection of user interfaces for algorithmic composition software was conducted. The review led to a set of findings used to identify candidate design principles which were then tested via a series of design exercises. The findings from these design exercises led to the development of a new abstraction, the Chooser, via a series of iterative design cycles. Once a candidate design had been finalised it was evaluated with participants via a programming walkthrough evaluation. The findings from this participant study were used to identify and redesign elements of the design. The updated design was re-evaluated in a second programming walkthrough evaluation, with the findings used to refine the formalism. The final study used Choosers as a design probe through a series of interviews with domain experts to discuss future implications for music education, production, and composition.