Play Music with the Virtual Keyboard
The virtual keyboard is a fun on-screen music keyboard that lets you play music on your computer. You can either tap the keys on your Interactive Whiteboard, use the mouse, or just press the keys on your computer keyboard (using the A to @ keys, and the row above).
You can choose from several different musical instrument sounds from piano to organ to guitar and even steel drums.
It’s fun, and even better, it’s free.
Check it out here and although you can select a virtual drum beat to go along with your track if you want someone to accompany you, don’t forget the virtual drumkit too.
Thanks to Tim Rylands for the link.
Read MoreMusic Shake – free online music creator
Music shake is an online music creation tool that lets you create your own original music track from thousands of copyright-free music samples.
To make music, choose a music style from the bottom of the screen, and then click in the squares to add layers of different instruments. Some blocks of music – such as the drum beats, can be altered once added. Clicking the numbers at the top will change the chord for that block.
It’s good fun and I was able to create a short loop of music very quickly.
You need to register with the site to save your clips, but registration is free. The T&C does state that no under 13s should use the site, so keep that in mind when planning to use this with your class.
Check it out at : http://eng.musicshake.com/create
Update : A paid for, educational version of Music Shake is also available. You can take a look at http://edu.musicshake.com/
Read MorePlink and Tonecraft – two music tools for Chrome
Music teachers might be interested in these two Google Chrome based web apps from Dinahmoe Labs, both of which would work really well on an Interactive Whiteboard.
Plink is a simple HTML5 interactive music generator. Simply log into Plink, choose a name, then hit “OK”. Your name, along with other users’ names, will appear on the screen and start generating music. Press and hold the left mouse button (or press on your IWB) for any length of time to play a note or series of notes. Move the mouse up and down to change the pitch. Change instruments by clicking on one of the colored boxes to the left.
Try it here : http://labs.dinahmoe.com/plink/
Tonecraft lets you build up tunes by placing blocks onto a grid. The Y-axis represents the pitch of the tone, the X-axis represents the time and the different colors represent different instruments. The Z-axis makes it possible to layer sounds and to create what ever visual structures you like. You can generate simple tunes from just these few building blocks.
Try it here : http://labs.dinahmoe.com/ToneCraft/
Both Plink and Tonecraft require the Google Chrome web browser to work, so this may mean you can’t run it in school without having a chat with your network manager.
Read MoreCreate Music with Isle of Tune
Isle of Tune is a music sequencer with a slight difference. You create music from street layouts. It sounds like an odd idea, but it’s brilliant.
Draw a road, and place a car on it. Then place different items next to the road such as houses, trees and lamps. As the car passes these it plays a sound. The type of sound/pitch of the note can be changed. You can have several cars moving round at the same time, on several different stretches of road to build up your tune from separate loops. Apparently you can have up to 8 cars.
It’s very simple to use and create a basic tune. You can also view a top chart of islands created by other people to see how it should be done. Check out the Lion Sleeps Tonight for instance! Users can vote on their favourites.
You don’t need to register to play around with the site, you can just jump straight in. Future versions will also be released for iPad and iPhone which would make a great app. Here’s a sneak peak at the iPad app, which looks like it works exactly the same as the PC version.
Music teachers will love this. Give this to a class and let them play and see what they can produce.
Check it out now : http://isleoftune.com/
Read More
7 Sources of Creative Commons Audio For Podcasts
A podcast sounds better with a bit of music in it. Or some special audio effects. But the problem is that legally you can’t just use any mp3 file from your music library since you will be breaching the copyright of the original artist. So move away from using your favourite bands – and look into the wide range of “pod-safe” or creative commons audio that are out there on the web.
Here are several websites that are worth a look – some provide whole music tracks, others provide sound effects.
Music Sites
Jamendo
Jamendo is a community of free, legal and unlimited music published under Creative Commons licenses. You can search by genre and style. Over 280,000 tracks on the site at the time of writing.
Free Music Archive
The Free Music Archive is an interactive library of high-quality, legal audio downloads.
AudioFarm
Like the two sites above – AudioFarm is an interactive library of audio downloads. As well as music it also hosts radio shows/podcasts from around the world.
CCMixter
ccMixter is a community music site featuring remixes licensed under Creative Commons where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want. If your students are into sampling, remixing and mash-ups they can use the files from the site to remix, then upload back into ccMixter, for others to enjoy and re-sample.
Sound Effects
Soungle is a free site for finding all kind of sound FX and musical instruments samples from their online library. Search results of a keyword search are displayed ten to a page. Clicking on play icon allows you to preview a file. Download button instantly downloads the sound effect or musical instrument sample file.
FreeSound
The Freesound Project is a collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sounds. Freesound focusses only on sound, not songs. You need to register to download, but it’s free.
Soundbible
SoundBible.com is the encyclopedia of free sound clips, offering free and royalty free sounds. They update regularly.
In addition
Don’t forget the Creative Commons Search Engine : http://search.creativecommons.org/ which you can use to search many different creative commons sources from one page.
Read MoreFestive Tunes with the Reindeer Orchestra
Something silly for the festive season here. Put yourself in charge of Rudolph and his friends in a rousing rendition of Jingle Bells, Deck the Halls and We Wish You A Merry Christmas with this fun Reindeer Orchestra interactive.
Just squeeze the noses of the reindeer choir on your interactive whiteboard (or at home with the mouse) or press the corresponding numbers on your keyboard to play along.
Thanks to everyone for following the Whiteboard Blog this year, and have a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Read MoreAviary for Education
I’ve written about the fabulous Aviary before. If you haven’t seen it, Aviary provides a suite of online tools that allows you to take create images, edit screenshots, edit sounds and create music. All for free, and all through your browser.
I was rather pleased to find out that there will soon be an special version for students and educators that lets them use Aviary in a completely private setting which is separate from the rest of the Aviary community. Aviary Education will let teachers:
• Create private student accounts
• Manage assignments and projects
• Use the image editor, vector editor, audio editor & music creator
• access content and images which are 100% school safe
It’s currently in beta, so if you want to try it out you can request a free beta trial.
Check it out now: http://www.aviaryeducation.com/
Read MoreIncredibox
Here’s a fun little website for a Sunday morning. Incredibox allows you to create music using what is best described as a virtual human beatbox. You have to really try it to get the idea. Very simple to use, just drag the different sound icons onto each person to play each loop. Easy to use on an Interactive Whiteboard.
Thanks to Keisa Williams for sharing the link on Twitter.
Read MoreBalldroppings – Music app
Here’s a quick link for a Saturday afternoon. Like many of the resources I pass on, this one comes via the magic of Twitter. Thanks to Carol Broos (Musictechie) for passing it on.
The site is called Balldroppings. Basically a ball drops from the hole in the top left of the screen. Click and drag with the mouse to draw lines on the screen which act like cushions on a pool table. When the ball hits it, a not will play. Build up several lines to develop a tune (of sorts) You can play with a few variables such as gravity and rate of ball drop too. It’s not too sophisticated, but very neat in its simplicity.
If you want links to other music apps – a reminder that my 11 interactive tools for music can be found here.
Read More
About Me
Danny Nicholson : Educator, Science teacher, ICT Consultant, PGCE lecturer, Author and Web2.0 / SMART Masters/ Interactive Whiteboard Trainer. Contact me for any training requests. 
Buy the book!
