The piano and the DJ set

Issue 270: The ladder of abstraction in creative software tools

Two musicians are preparing for a performance. One sits at a grand piano. Every sound passes directly through their hands. There’s no buffer between intention and result—each note is the outcome of muscle memory, timing, and emotion. Across the room, a DJ sets up a controller, mixer, and laptop. Instead of pressing strings or keys, they trigger loops, bend tempo, and layer samples. Their artistry lies not in producing each sound from scratch, but in orchestrating existing ones into something new.

The the level of professional skill and craft required to play the piano and playing DJ sets can be debated for ages. What cannot be debated is both players of said instruments love music. They are each creating on different rungs of the ladder of abstraction. One creates at the atomic level; the other creates at the systemic level. Neither is more “authentic.” They simply operate with different relationships between input and output.

The craft of making software is on a similar spectrum. If you’re a developer who learned the Command Line Interface (CLI), Git, and wrote every line of code manually in an IDE, it may feel like playing the piano. A designer may be spending decades starting with their cracked Photoshop license to learn how to create pixel perfect designs. Now we’re seeing the DJ era, based entirely on vibes and now music has been democratized, where anyone can create music. Now, the creative act has an existential crisis of who gets to deem such people as fellow craftspeople. In addition, we debate what future tools such as crafts use and how we interface with it.

The exploration of abstraction in creative tools has been a passion of mine for the past decade.I watched people build complex web experiences visually—expressing logic through layout, not syntax. It wasn’t about hiding code, but revealing structure: No-code, know code, as I would say. Designers could think like engineers without leaving their canvas.

Earlier, moving from Photoshop to Figma felt like shifting from a single instrument to an electronic keyboard: one surface, infinite sounds. Now, working in AI-native tools feels closer to a modular synth or DJ controller—you’re shaping systems through prompts and feedback rather than static inputs.

Each generation of tools adds a layer between thought and execution. Abstraction doesn’t dilute craft; it extends it. The better question isn’t _how close_ you are to the code, but _how fluidly_ you can move across those layers.

There are key considerations between the piano and DJ set as we think about the debate of abstraction. First, we must recognize the highly abstracted tools are often the entry point of access for new professionals. Second, abstracted tools also become a new input to technology and the interaction of professional tools. Finally, we must recognize the spectrum of abstraction is contextual and not a rigid line one must draw.

1. Entry through abstraction

Many musicians begin with a simpler instrument before they ever sit at a grand piano. It is possible — though very rare — to start at the piano from day one and master every primitive note straight away. In practice, most begin with tools that lower the barrier to entry. A teenager might start with a groove-box or DJ controller, explore loop-based production in Ableton Live, or toy with samples in GarageBand before ever learning the fingerings of classical piano. In parallel, a designer might first experiment in Canva instead of diving into Adobe Illustrator; a developer might prototype in Glide before writing raw JavaScript.

These are not detours — they’re valid entry-points. Abstraction lowers the immediate friction of creation so that intuition can emerge faster. Over time, that intuitive experimentation often leads back toward fundamentals — music theory, design systems, code structure. I learned HTML only after a visual tool like Dreamweaver helped me cross the hump into writing markup by hand.

Some of the most original forms of art emerge when beginners approach a tool without preconceptions. Hip-hop was born when DJs like Kool Herc used turntables as instruments rather than playback devices. The Roland TR-808 and TB-303, dismissed as artificial, became the backbone of entire genres. Artists like Billie Eilish built intimate worlds from bedrooms using GarageBand. Every time, abstraction gave birth to something new—and the professional world eventually absorbed it.

2. When new instruments return to professional craft

Every creative revolution eventually feeds back into professional practice. Trent Reznor is a perfect example. Classically trained and fluent in piano, he built the sound of Nine Inch Nails by embracing machines—samplers, sequencers, distortion units. He didn’t abandon traditional craft; he routed it through new instruments. The result was music that felt both mechanical and human, chaotic and precise. Those experiments now define the sound design vocabulary of film and games.

The same pattern repeats in every medium. DJs who once sampled vinyl now compose scores. Beatmakers who began in Fruity Loops design soundtracks for Oscar-winning films. The techniques that started as play have become the grammar of modern production.

In software, abstraction follows the same cycle. AI code assistants, no-code editors, and “vibe coding” platforms start as experimental shortcuts. Then professionals adopt them, refining the workflows, integrating the patterns back into core craft. Abstraction and mastery form a feedback loop: each advances the other. In the launch of Cursor 2.0, the popular software went from a traditional IDE to a more abstracted UI, starting with agentic workflows first. The most capable creators are fluent across levels—able to write raw code when precision matters, and to orchestrate AI or visual systems when scale matters.

3. The continuum of creation

The piano and the DJ set are not opposites. They’re points on the same continuum of expression. Mastery today isn’t about choosing one instrument but about knowing when to move between them. The pianist can become a DJ; the DJ set might be what inspires a musician to further their craft.

Whether it’s code/no-code, AI, the story of abstraction is the same. It’s a balancing of the spectrum of mastery that is along the line of professional craft and desired output.

Software, like music, is evolving from performance to composition to curation. The next generation of creators won’t see abstraction as a crutch; they’ll see it as clay. The music is in how you use the instrument, not how close your hands are to the strings.

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