Why Music Composers Make Good Programmers
Writing sheet music is essentially writing music code for humans to play.
Writing sheet music is essentially writing music code for humans to play. The entire piece of music is a program. In the big picture, there are while loops, for loops, if-else statements, parallel processing, and output modification steps along the way.
For example, while the measure number is between 1 and 16, the tenor saxophone rest, but the bass trombone should play loudly and proudly. For each note that is not a rest, interpret the dynamics and play the note with the assigned length. If this is the first time playing measure 47, play ending 1, else play ending 2. Playing a single piece of music with multiple instruments is the same as making a program execute in parallel on multiple CPU or GPU threads.
Each instrument playing the music is like a different file in a program. Sometimes there is a dedicated file for getting formatting right or including header information or importing libraries. The main file could be what the conductor reads to lead the group, while individual functions with dedicated files are akin to individual instrument parts. Maybe if we were looking at the first flute part, it would be equivalent to a dictionary file where states and numbers are linked for a user to select something in a drop down menu on a website.
