Music Maker Project

Description

In this project, students will create a Music Maker to play notes or entire songs using the Circuit Playground Express. The ||music:play sound|| block can be used with built-in preset sounds to make fun noises with the Circuit Playground Express when you press button A for example.

But the small speaker on the Circuit Playground Express can go beyond playing these preset sounds. Music-minded makers can attach conductive copper tape to the seven capacitive touch pins and create their very own music players!

Capacitive touch means something that can detect when a conductive material touches it. A conductive material is something that can carry an electrical current, like a finger or copper tape. See these articles to learn more about capacitive sensing, and electrical conductivity.

In this project, students will assign note values to each capacitive touch pin on the Circuit Playground Express to be able to play different songs and melodies.

The music maker in this sample project played Camila Cabello’s song “Havana” on a buttom A click, and it also provided the six tones needed to play the song by hand. These were color-coded so that a player could tap the color sequence to play the song.

Time Required

Hours

1-2 hours (more if the musical instrument is complex)

Academic Tie-in Ideas

• Music: add a maker component to your music study by coding a music maker.
• Literature: create an instrument that plays a composition for a character or scene.
• History: play a piece of music from a certain time period that you are studying.

Materials

See the Maker Tools and Techniques chapter for more details on materials.

• Cardboard
• Cork to mount the Circuit Playground Express board (optional)
• Copper tape
• Glue gun and hot glue
• Cardboard cutter
• Colored pencils, pens, crayons
• Tape

Making

The making of this project can range from the fairly simple to the very complex. In the sample project, two slices in the cardboard’s outer sheet let a triangle fold pop up. Hot glue secured it and a cork in place. The cork later had the Circuit Playground Express attached with packing tape.

Be sure to plan for power and USB connectivity of your Circuit Playground Express. In this example, just below the cork, a small hole will accommodate the JST battery pack connector.

Copper tape is a bit tricky to work with. Only unpeel a few inches at a time to prevent it from sticking to itself. When you want to make a turn, first fold it back in the opposite direction of where you want to go. See the Maker Tools and Techniques chapter for more tips and tricks.

More examples of reverse fold, then forward fold to make turns.

The copper tape can be inserted into the rings of pins A1 - A7. It’s vital that the tape only touch that pin connector. Make sure it doesn’t touch another pin, or another strip of tape.

Label each copper strip with the Note name (A – G) and you can color code these notes to create colored melodies to play!

Coding

See Coding the Circuit Playground Express chapter for more information When coding your Music Maker, you will find various helpful blocks in the ||music:MUSIC|| Toolbox drawer.

Use the ||music:play tone|| block to select a musical note and duration. Notice that there is a number value placed for the note value – this is the note frequency or pitch in hertz (Hz). For more information on audio frequency values, see this article.

The sample code below uses the ||music:play tone|| block with six of the Circuit Playground Express pins, and it adds a different color to display for each tone. This setup allows you to play music by tapping conductive tape attached to each pin, and you can create a color guide to your music.

input.pinA1.onEvent(ButtonEvent.Click, function () {
music.playTone(294, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half))
light.setAll(0xff0000)
})
input.pinA5.onEvent(ButtonEvent.Click, function () {
music.playTone(220, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half))
light.setAll(0xff00ff)
})
input.pinA2.onEvent(ButtonEvent.Click, function () {
music.playTone(330, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half))
light.setAll(0x00ff00)
})
input.pinA6.onEvent(ButtonEvent.Click, function () {
music.playTone(247, music.beat(BeatFraction.Whole))
light.setAll(0xffff00)
})
input.pinA3.onEvent(ButtonEvent.Click, function () {
music.playTone(349, music.beat(BeatFraction.Whole))
light.setAll(0x0000ff)
})
input.pinA7.onEvent(ButtonEvent.Click, function () {
music.playTone(262, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half))
light.setAll(0xff8000)
})

For more advanced musicians in the class, they can string together multiple ||music:play tone|| blocks to create their own songs. The sample below includes the composition of a portion of the song “Havana.”

input.pinA1.onEvent(ButtonEvent.Click, function () { 
music.setTempo(100) 
music.playTone(262, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(330, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(330, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(262, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(262, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(220, music.beat(BeatFraction.Double)) 
music.rest(music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(330, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(294, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(330, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(349, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(330, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(294, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(262, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(330, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(330, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(262, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(262, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(220, music.beat(BeatFraction.Double)) 
music.rest(music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(330, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(294, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(330, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(294, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(262, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(330, music.beat(BeatFraction.Half)) 
music.playTone(247, music.beat(BeatFraction.Double))
})

Variations and Challenges

One fun way to extend the challenge of the instrument is to form its shape as a real instrument, or else as something symbolic. For example, if you’re going to play a Woody Guthrie song about the Dust Bowl era, the body of the instrument could take the form of a family’s overloaded 1930’s truck.