Songwriting in Scala - Creating a DSL for writing Music with ADT's

Can you compose and produce music with Scala? Absolutely! And I’ll show you how. As a longtime professional musician now re-purposed as a Scala developer, I have used functional programming fundamentals to model music and create some simple music web audio applications. The presentation will walk through how and why I made modelling decisions to represent musical properties and events, and I’ll write and play a song from scratch in real time using a Domain Specific Language for Music. The talk is aimed at Scala and FP beginners and/or any fans of digital music creation and production and is designed as a fun and interactive introduction to ADT usage in modelling real life data.

Topics covered:

* How I have chosen to model musical elements and properties

* How Algebraic Data types have been used to create a simple idiomatic music DSL

* Live demonstration of arranging and playing a polyphonic arrangement with the DSL

Speaker

Paul Matthews

Paul Matthews's profile
Backend Scala Developer
ClearScore

Who am I

I'm currently a backend Scala developer at ClearScore with a focus on functional programming.I completed a BSc in Computer Science at the Uni of Hertfordshire in 2020 with first class honours and prior to this have a background in the music industry as a signed recording artist, record producer and audio engineer with credits including number 1 chart positions and platinum and gold sales.