We wrote this book to teach novice programmers how to code in ChucK. Thus, we start at the very beginning, so don’t be afraid. We will teach programming through musical examples. We believe that being able to “hear” what your code is doing will aid you in learning the key concepts, as well as make the process enjoyable. If you are an experienced programmer, you may be able to skip a couple of the beginning chapters depending on your level, but note that ChucK is quite different from other languages. We promise that there is something to learn here for everyone.
If you’re an advanced programmer who is already familiar with another language, “What’s different about ChucK?,” later in this front matter, gives a strategy for approaching ChucK from your vantage point.
Throughout the chapters there are suggested composition exercises to expand what you have learned. In a way, you can view each chapter as “unlocking” new parts of the language you can use in your compositions.
In chapter 0 (computer scientists almost always number from zero), we tell you why ChucK is different from other languages, and how we, and many others have used it in myriad music and art projects.