Introduction

This week we are going to make music in a really unusual way. Isle of Tune is available online or as an app for your tablet. The online version is free but more limited and has recently been rebuilt in HTML5 to allow it to work without issues in all modern browsers (it was previously Flash based). This new version is listed as 'still a work in progress', so new features may be added in time, but most of the features that were available in the old version are there at the time of writing. 

 

Isle of Tune

Open the website or app for Isle of Tune. 

 

 

 

Create your musical island

Click Play to begin a new Island and add a road, show how it follows the lines on the grass (diagonally). If you make any mistakes use the eraser tool to delete squares. 

 

 

Add a beat

Add a few lamp posts and a car (Tip - You don’t need to drag the items onto your island, you select the item/tool and then every click you do on the island adds one of the items). Then press ‘Go’ to hear your first beat.

 

 

Relate this back to 2Beat and the other tools we've used, how are the tools similar? Which part of 2Beat does the same job as the road in Isle of Tune?  Establish that the road is the equivalent of the timeline boxes in 2Beat.

Ask the children to draw their own straight road and experiment with adding sounds to it. The eraser tool is available if they go wrong. Ask them to add just lamp posts for now,

• Can you create a regular beat?
• How can you change the sound of the beat?

Clicking again on an item once it’s on your island lets you edit the sound it makes by clicking the different sound buttons. If you want to repeat that sound again use the stamper tool.

 

 

 

Scales

Next add a row of around 5 or 6 plant pots. Create a simple scale of notes by changing the sound of each plant. Remind the students how to change the sound of the musical notes: Click twice as you add them, or go back and click on any item that is already there select a different note using the piano keys, they are coloured to help you remember which one you used.

 

 

Layering sounds

How can you layer your sounds and make more than one sound at the same time? What happens when you add a second car to the road? What happens when you have a second separate road and car?  Let them experiment to answer these questions.

This lets us create layers of sounds, each car is a ‘player’ and will trigger the sounds on its own. You can have up to 3 cars on your island at once. You can delete them with the eraser tool.

 

 

Make a simple beat on a separate square road to create a continuous loop. Emphasise spacing the items equally by counting the squares so the beat is regular.

 

 

Other sounds

Then ask them to explore by adding other items such as houses, plant pots and trees and seeing what different sounds they can find in each set. Point out that they can add things to both sides of the road and to try and keep a regular beat going.

 

 

Again, each object offers a wide range of sounds, which you can choose from by clicking on it once it is placed on your island. Remind the children to save time by using the stamper to repeat sounds they've changed from the default. But repeating the same sound again and again on its own, or too much of a single sound won't sound very good. 

 

Main task

Ask the children to create their own loop for a regular beat. Then get them to create a second straight road and different notes to make a very simple tune. Add cars to both and play to combine their beat and their melody.

Do they sound good together? Are they a similar tempo? Have they thought about the notes they used?

Encourage them to try out different sounds with the different objects. Ask them to make tune out of just:

 

Street lights

 

Houses

 

Trees

 

Potted plants

 

Then try different combinations of which ones to play. They don't need to use them all at the same time, just delete and move cars to choose which ones play at any time. 

 

Plenary

What sounds did you find? How do you create layers of sound in Isle of Tune? To play two sounds at the same time they have to be on opposite sides of the road, or you can add extra cars on the same (or a different) section of road. Who used more than three sounds? Who changed the types of sound by clicking again on the object and adjusting it. Why is the stamper tool really useful?  How would you like to improve at using Isle of Tune?

Finally, ask the students to think back to the other sound making websites we've used in this unit. Which do you prefer? Which is most fun? Which do you think is easiest to use to make music?

In the next lesson we'll be starting to think about images and sounds, and how they can go together.