The teacher explains that many music-generating AI systems learn the probability of what comes next, and gives students the soprano lines of four Bach chorales, which are out of copyright. In Google Sheets students count every move from one note to the next and turn the counts into a transition table, then enter the table into a starter Sonic Pi program that picks each next note by weighted chance. They generate a dozen melodies and critique them in a written log: the model reproduces stepwise motion and common intervals, but has no sense of phrase length or cadence. Over four lessons each student composes a 90-second piece that combines generated passages with their own material, adding the phrase endings and harmony the model cannot supply, and explains in a 300-word commentary where the model helped and where they overruled it.
Tools: Sonic Pi, Google Sheets Nine ideas for your own version in Generate
This page is one of a growing set of PICRAT examples by cell, subject and grade. Page maintained by Andy Perryer.