Integrating computational thinking with the curriculum of future professional musicians

The purpose of this study is to look at how a music programming course affects the development of computational thinking in undergraduate music conservatory students. In addition to teaching the fundamentals of computational thinking, music programming, and logic, the course addresses the Four C's of education. The change in students' attitudes toward computer and algorithmic skills, creativity, communication, and collaboration is measured using a pre-and post-test experimental design. Additionally, computational thinking abilities are assessed through the administration of music analysis, procedural, graphical, and logic quizzes, while creativity is evaluated through a qualitative grading of the students' final music projects. Results show a general perceived improvement of the students' attitudes toward the Four C's as well as a good ability to convert learned computational models into musical creativity. However, more effort is needed in order to guarantee an overall improvement in the students' actual computational thinking abilities.