Intro to Song Maker

VIDEOS

Song Maker Basics

Saving Song Maker Songs

READING

Google Song Maker provides a simple but powerful tool for online music creation. To find Google Song Maker, you could type "song maker" into your search bar.

Another way is by following this link:

When you open song maker, this is what you will see:

For now, we are only going to learn about the different parts of Song Maker. We will learn how to create a song and share it. The first part we will learn about is the part with all of the boxes, shown below:

If you click in one of those boxes, it will turn into a color. This means that a musical note will play. If you click it again, the color will go away. I clicked some boxes so you could see what that looks like below:

If you want to change the instrument sound for your notes, you should click the button shown in the picture below:

Every time you click it, it changes to a different instrument. If you pass the one you want, just keep clicking. It will come around again.

Another important part of Song Maker are two rows of dots below the boxes, shown below:

When you click one of the dots on the bottom row, it turns into a circle. It will sound like one kind of drum. If you click one of the dots in the top row, it will turn into a triangle. It will sound like a different kind of drum. Just like the colors in the boxes, I can erase a circle or triangle by clicking it again. In the picture below, I have clicked some of the dots:

Just like the boxes, you can change the sounds of your drums by clicking the button shown below:

When you are ready, you can listen to your song. Just click the "PLAY" button, shown below:

The song will play until you click the button again.

You can also change how fast your song plays by using the tempo slider, shown below:

If you move the slider to the left, your song will slow down. If you move it to the right, your song will speed up.

Now we are going to learn about the settings button, shown below:

When click the settings button, the following screen opens:

There are many things that you can change about your song in the settings window. We are not going to learn about what all of these do right now, but feel free to change some of the settings and see what you think. Experiment!

The most important thing we are going to learn about today is how to save or share your work in song maker. When you are happy with your song, or if you just want to save what you have done so you don't have to do it again, click on the "Save" button, shown below:

When you click the "Save" button, the following screen will appear.

The most important thing on this screen are the words "Copy Link". I have circled them in the picture below:

When you click "Copy Link", it will copy the link to your Song Maker to your clipboard. Song Maker lets you know that the link has been copied by highlighting it, as shown below:

(I was going to say that it was highlighted in blue, but it turned gray when i took a screenshot. So i took that part out. It will probably highlight in blue, though)

You can then paste the link into a turn-in form, an email, or a document where you keep links to your Song Maker songs. One easy way to paste is to hold down the "ctrl" key on your keyboard and press "v" at the same time.

Copy = "ctrl+c"

Paste = "ctrl+v"

As an example, I created a document where I pasted a few links to some Song Maker songs that I made. Here is a picture of my document:

Those are the basics of Song Maker. We will be learning more about how to use Song Maker to create great music!

QUIZIZZ

ASSIGNMENT

MAKE A SONG IN SONG MAKER.

YOUR SONG SHOULD:

INCLUDE A MELODY (COLORS)

INCLUDE A RHYTHM (SHAPES)

CHANGE THE MELODY INSTRUMENT

CHANGE THE RHYTHM INSTRUMENT

CHANGE THE TEMPO (SPEED)

BONUS: CHANGE ANOTHER SETTING

WHEN YOU FINISH YOUR SONG, YOU CAN SAVE IT BY COPYING THE LINK AND PASTING IT IN THE FORM. THIS IS NOT REQUIRED.