Introduction

You might have heard the word "digital" being used, some people say we're in the "Digital Age." There's digital television, digital clocks, digital music and many other digital things.  But what does digital mean? and what is analogue sound? What’s the difference between them?

When something is digital, we mean that it has been created with a code that can be understood by machines like computers. In digital music, the sound has been recorded and then changed into numbers and sometimes letters that computers can read, understand and recreate, to make the sound again. Digital information is typically stored using a series of ones and zeros. Computers are digital machines because they can only read information as on or off -- 1 or 0. This method of computation is known as the binary system. Most of the music people listen today is digital. It means we can stream and download music quickly and easily to our mobile devices (which are small computers) for them to decode and play.

 

 

What is an MP3?  This is probably the most common type of digital music file today. They are a type of computer file that contains these numbers and letters that our computers, phones, and other music players can understand.  When we press the "play" button, the music player reads the code in the MP3 file and tells our speakers and headphones to make certain sounds, and we hear the songs played back as digital music.

 

 

CDs are another very common type of digital music.

 

 

Ask - What’s the opposite of digital music? What came before CDs and MP3s?

Not all music is digital.  If you listen to a cassette tape or a record, you're listening to analog music. In analog music, the sound is not changed into a computer language.

When microphones record sound, they act just like an ear and respond to a sound’s vibrations. Those vibrations change as the sound changes and a stylus, which is sort of like a pen that doesn’t have any ink, carves a shape of the sound onto the tape or record. As the sounds and vibrations change, the shapes that get written on the tape or record change. Record players and tape players can recognise these shapes, which they play back to us as sound.

 

A close up of a record player stylus following the grooves on a vinyl record.

 

Both analog and digital music can play high quality sound, but many people prefer digital music because after a while, analog music can lose quality from being played too much. The numbers and letters that computers read for digital music never change.

Over the next few weeks we are going to be using a variety of digital sound tools that let us experiment with, edit and combine sounds together on our computers. Some are websites, others require software to be installed on the computer. 

Today’s lesson is about experimenting with a couple of different websites that will let you create repeating patterns and mix sound in different ways. We will compare and contrast them and discuss this at the end of the lesson.

 

Chrome Song Maker

Found at: https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Song-Maker/

Chrome Song Maker is a really easy to use sequencer. Let the students explore to find out how it works. Then after a few minutes, ask them to explain what they have found. 

 

 

Here’s the features they might come up with:

• You can add notes by clicking on any of the squares, 
• Play chords by having more than one square in a column lit up. 
• The notes go from low at the bottom row to high at the top. 
• You can also add drum beats at the bottom of the screen by adding triangles or circles to the dots to create different rhythms. 
• You can change the note sounds by clicking the instrument button next to the play button (that starts as Marimba)
• You can alter the drum sounds by clicking the third button from the left (that starts as electronic)
• You can slow it down or speed it up with the Tempo slider. 
• You can use the arrow keys, enter and backspace to add or remove notes
• You can sing a notes and it will add it in the right place if you use (and have) a microphone.
• You can save your work as it creates a custom URL to your tune, you can also download the tune as a MIDI or WAV file once saved.

 

Ask the students:

• How does this site work as a music making tool?
• What can you do with it?
• What can’t you do with it and how is it limited?
• What would you add?

 

Incredibox

Next take a look at Incredibox. You may need to enable Flash to run in your browser to get this to work. If using Chrome, click on the padlock on the left of your address bar, then go to site settings > Flash > Allow, then return to the page and reload it. 

 

 

There are four (free) versions of the tool available from the homepage, but they all work in the same way. Select one of the versions to begin and then drag and drop the icons/shapes/clothing onto the characters in the centre of the screen. Ask the students to choose one and experiment. How do you make sounds?

Each version is based around a different ‘song’ and has its own set of sounds.

Ask the students:

• How does this site work as a music making tool?
• What can you do with it?
• What can’t you do with it and how is it limited? 

Encourage them to listen to some of the sounds on their own. Are they complex or simple sounds? Why does it always sound good, whatever combination you select? What stops it sounding bad? The timing / tempo is consistent and dictated for you across all the sounds so they always start and play at the correct time, to harmonise with the other sounds.

 

It’s easy to just throw anything and it’ll sound good, but consider how most dance tracks start. Often the baseline will start first and then some sound effects or melody, or vice versa. You don’t need to have all the spaces on the row filled all the time either, you can add and take out the sounds at any time so the track develops and then fades away at the end. 

 

Take a look at these examples and then see if the students can have a go at creating their own track in a similar style. It should start with nothing, build up slowly, have a crescendo, and then fade back out to nothing. 

• Example 1
• Example 2
• Example 3

They can record their efforts too! Click the three lines to find the record button and get to work. 

 

You need to record at least 24 seconds to save anything. Click the record button again to finish the recording.

 

 

When you stop the recording you get the option to name and save your work. 

 

 

Then, in the web version, your only option is to share the mix.

 

 

Ask students to choose email and email it to themselves or you, or ask them to get the mix link and copy and paste it into a shared document, or set up a Google or Microsoft Form to collect the student’s name and a place for them to paste the link, so you have all the links and who made them in one spreadsheet. (see lesson 2 for more guidance).

 

All the versions of Incredibox have hidden sound clips that need to be unlocked by placing the correct combination of sounds on the characters, this can only be found with trial and error or good luck! 

 

Blob opera

Blob opera is a hilarious and wonderful alternative in musical styles to Incredibox. It's an experiment from Google's Arts and Culture project and lets you drag the blob characters up and down, forwards and backwards to alter the operatic tones that they sing.

 

 

Follow the easy tutorial to get started and then record your own tune, share it and take the blobs on tour with the globe button, where you'll discover localised operatic music for the blobs to sing, have fun!

 

 

There are lots of other creative arts experiments in the Play section of the page, so feel free to explore more.

 

 

Ambient Mixer

Finally, if you have time, take a look at Ambient mixer. 

 

It’s a very different way of mixing sounds as it’s not at all about music, instead it gives you scenes or locations (categories are given on the right of the homepage) and lets you play with the ambient noises that you might hear in that location. You can change the levels of each sound and how often they occur within a certain time frame (e.g. 5 plays per minute) or randomise the sounds. 

 

Plenary - Comparing the tools

At the end of the lesson, save a few minutes to review the tools used today and the differences between them. Ask the students to talk to a friend about some of these questions first and then take class feedback: 

• Which was your favourite tool and why?
• What was the best feature of each tool?
• How would you improve each tool?
• What made each one different?
• What did they have in common?
• Which one would you like to spend longer on?