Being able to listen and see how changes to the waves make a difference to what I'm hearing is interesting for me as an amateur musician with some understanding of the physics, but I wonder how well this works for kids in this classroom environment. Are they actually being taught synthesis, or are they rather being taught to make music and treating each piece of code as an instrument where they change what notes it plays rather than what it does?

I can see how the automated synthesis could be more appealing than classical instruments because they sound like what one hears on TV or radio, and doesn't need years of practice for good technique.

Is there an advantage to showing kids the actual numbers though? And how effective are these numbers compared to "conventional music" concepts like BPM and named notes of a scale (even if they are just named, 1st, 2nd, 3rd or do re mi - and even if the scale is not assumed to have 8 notes).

If I'm reading the list of contributors right it seems like these are musicians rather than computer scientists, so it would be interesting to hear from them.