Introduction

This unit of work gives your class a wide range of opportunities to experiment with musical tools on a range of platforms and devices. As well as creative and musical skills, it should also develop some of their basic IT skills, such as mouse control, dragging and dropping, finding websites, working with tabs in a web browser, importing files into a program, saving work as well as using a range of apps.

Begin by asking the class about how we can make music. How many musical instruments can you name? How can you make music without a musical instrument?

Establish that computers are a great way for making music and experimenting with sound. Today, music is often made with a combination of instruments and computers. Computers let us record and edit the sounds and piece them together a bit at a time.

Today, and in the coming weeks, we are going to experiment and have fun with lots of different and unusual websites, apps and computer programs that let us make music in different ways. 

 

Musical Websites

Begin with letting the children explore four different websites for making music. You can direct them to these sites by asking them to type in this one address into their internet browser: tinyurl.com/soundsites. Here they will find clickable links to all the sites which should make it faster and easier for them to navigate to the four websites. Demonstrate how each one will open in a new tab in the browser, how to get back to the slide with the links and that they can close each one when they are finished with it.

 

 

The sites are:

ABCYa Sound Burst

www.abcya.com/games/sound_burst

Really simple, but really cool! Each letter key on your keyboard contains a different sound sample and visual effect. Try them all and find your favourites.  Listen to the sounds, how are they different? How are they similar? Which are high or low? Which do they like or not like? Why? What happens when you press the spacebar? 

 

Peg and Cat Music Maker

pbskids.org/peg/games/music-maker

Chose from three themes (and sound tones) and create your own tune by dragging the posts up and down to different heights. The higher the post the lower the note. Cat will run along (in a loop) to play your notes when you hit play. You can control the tempo (speed) of the tune by moving the arrow on the speedometer at the bottom of the screen, and Peg will play along to your tune when you click the instrument button.

Virtual Drum Kit

www.virtualdrumming.com/drums/online-virtual-games/online-virtual-games-drums.html

Click the image or press the letter keys on your keyboard to play the different drums and cymbals in this virtual drum kit. Click the three lines in the top left of the drum kit screen to choose different drum sets, see what each key does and adjust the drum sounds and volumes.

Can you build a steady rhythm? Can you play more than one drum or cymbal together? Which is your favourite sound?

 

Sound Waves - Chrome Music Lab

musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Sound-Waves/

One or many really cool sound and music tools in the Chrome Music Lab experiments (we'll look at more of these later!). Sound waves travel through the air like waves through water – but a lot faster. The blue dots represent air molecules bouncing back and forth as sound travels through them.  Click the piano keys to play the notes and see how the sound waves change. Tap the magnifying glass to zoom in and see a red line graphing the position of one molecule, tracing the shape of the wave.

 

Oscillators - Chrome Music Lab

musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Oscillators/

Another Chrome Music Lab experiment - An oscillator makes sound by vibrating at a steady rate, known as its frequency. Click and drag your mouse (or finger on a touchscreen) up and down to change the oscillator’s frequency, or swipe to hear different types of oscillators. To hear a really slow oscillator, pick the square shape and touch the very bottom of your screen.

 

2Explore

Next open 2Explore from Purple Mash (or from the Music Toolkit in the old 2Simple Collection). 

In Purple Mash, go into the Tools section.

 

 

You will find 2Explore in the Music and Sound section.

 

 

As the app opens it looks like this.

 

 

Briefly introduce how it works. A video is available at the top of the screen if needed.

 

 

Ask the class - how is it similar to the websites you just used?

Give them time to experiment with the basic sound buttons available on the screen. Ask - What do you think a repeating beat is?

Then show the recording function. Can you use the recording tool to make a simple repeating beat or pattern?

 

 

Then click the three lines in the top left of the screen to and start a new file. Demonstrate how this lets you choose from other sound sets.

 

 

Let them choose their own set of sounds and continue to explore the sounds and make sequences with the recording tool.

Introduce the other playback options they have, which include a playback speed slider and an option to loop their recording so that it repeats.

 

Set the playback speed (slow on the left, fast on the right)

 

Loop your recording when it plays.

 

 

Plenary

Recap the sites and tools that the children have explored in the lesson. Ask them:

Which of the tools do you like best? Why?

Which one was hardest to use? Why?

If you could change something about any of the music tools you’ve used today what would it be? You could add something, take something away or just make it different.