Hosting a Python FL Studio Session at Hack for Impact

This past week, my school hosted their annual Hackathon–this year’s dubbed “Hack for Impact.” Hack for Impact was a full school day on Friday dedicated to students in the Information Technology pathway where they signed up for sessions led by other students and teachers. These sessions presented students with a problem, introduced them to a technology, and encouraged students to work towards a solution to that problem using the given technology. 

I co-hosted a session with my Music Technology & AP Music Theory teacher at school. We both are experienced as producers and knew the school and IT Pathway now had a thriving population of music producers, so we wanted to create a session that was dedicated to solving a problem pertaining to music production. A problem I am especially passionate about is access in music production–it’s the reason I founded this blog and nonprofit. Writing melodies in MIDI is among the most important skills in music production, and I wanted to center this session around making that process easier for those who are new to it. 

I had recently read about an update within FL Studio 21 that introduced Python scripting in the Piano Roll using MIDI. Users are able to write and import Python scripts that add new features to the Piano Roll. Some interesting projects people have already done include randomizing transposition and an automatic chord progression generator tool. These projects make music production easier for novice and seasoned producers alike by encouraging creativity and fostering new ideas. 

Before hosting this session, my teacher and I had to install FL Studio and Visual Studio Code on all of the computers in the lab to ensure students could do the project on school computers during the session if they preferred to. When writing my lesson plan for the session, I knew I would have to demonstrate the basics of using FL Studio, since some students may have experience in different DAWs. Because Python scripting in FL Studio also existed for Edison and SliceX, an audio recorder and sampler, I realized I had to teach students how to use FL Studio’s Piano Roll, Edison, and SliceX so they knew how to write melodies in MIDI, record audio, and manipulate that audio into new pieces. 

Giving the students an understanding of FL Studio itself was critical for them to be able to build tools to make that process easier. The session lasted the entire school day, and students presented their projects at the end of the day. Ultimately, students in our session had manipulated the chord progression tool and transposition tool to enable novice producers to create full melodies without extensive knowledge of music theory. I am so happy that the students enjoyed using FL Studio, analyzed existing code, and understood it so they could manipulate it and create their own tools. We spent a single day with students in this session, and I am excited to see what more can be done as we spend more time with Python and FL Studio moving forward.