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This month a lovely, lovely gift was given unto music teachers: Chrome Music Lab. It celebrates Music in Our Schools Month with 12 musical experiments that explore music and sound. All of them would work as rewards earned by a class or when you have an extra minute, but most of them could also be used to teach certain concepts. Let’s explore how you can use these in the classroom, starting with the first 6 experiments.
This experiment involves cute cartoon characters playing non-pitched percussion. There are four options: 3 beats, 4 beats, 5 beats, and 6 beats. (The beats are represented by the dark grey lines, and the off-beats are in between them.) Below the characters, you can three sounds for each with iconic notation, and the pattern repeats. This is great for teaching rhythmic ostinato, since you have limited options with iconic notation and an automatic loop. This could be used as a composition tool, with kids composing on the board and then playing along (pause it if you want a different tempo.) You can also use it to teach 3/4, 4/4, 5/4 and 6/4 time. This could even be tied into quarter note, quarter rest, and eighth notes.
Kids love to see visual representations of music, and the spectrogram is great for that. It charts the frequencies visually, so kids can see what sounds look like. Several pre-recorded options are listed like birds, flute, and a drums machine. You can also control the spectrogram with a mouse, or record a sound to see what it looks like. This is a great visual representation for high and low as well as loud and quiet (the colors change with volume).
A keyboard with a 2 octave range is used to display chords. A toggle allows you to choose if the chord is major or minor. This is great to showcase how chords and built, as well as the difference between major and minor chords. I am excited to use this when we first learn I IV and V chords.
Another visual representation of sound, this experiment features a 2 octave keyboard tied to a screen representing sound waves. Zoom in to see the wave as a line, and zoom out to see the air molecules moving as sound travels through them. Kids can visually see the difference between high and low sounds.
A circle of 5ths allows you to control which chord is arpeggiated. A toggle on the left allows you to switch between harp and piano, and the metronome button allows you to set a tempo. This is great for chords. Just pressing the letter (without pressing play) will result in a rolled chord, and changing arpeggios allows students to experience chord progressions in a different way. This could also be used to differentiate between major and minor. This experiment goes nicely with the Chords page.
Kandinsky was an artist well known for creating art based on music he heard. Taking it one step farther, this experiment turns what you draw into sound. Some shapes (circle, rectangle, pentagons) turn into singing characters complete with cute eyes and mouths, some (triangle, heart) turn into non-pitched percussion sounds, and most (lines, scribbles, stars, etc.) turn into various pitches. Sometimes you have to draw a shape a very certain way to get a particular sound. Pitch-wise, do through sol (with a high do) are used, depending on where you put your drawing. You can change the timbre by clicking on the button to the right of the play button. You have three options: blue/green synth sounds, pink/purple pitched percussion, and orange/yellow orchestral sounds. This is my favorite one so far. The kids just adore making sounds come alive with various shapes. This is also a great composition tool for primary kiddos, though I feel like my 5th grade boys could have done this for hours. I probably HAVE done this for hours by now, and I have no regrets.
One particularly genius thing about Chrome Music Lab is it works on tablets and phones as well as computers with no need for an app, you can do it right in the browser. That means these could be incorporated into computer time or a tablet station. It also makes it easier for kids to access these as home, since not everyone has a computer but most have some type of mobile device.
This is the second post on how to use Chrome Music Lab in the music classroom. For thefirst post, please click here.
Chrome MusicLab is a wonderful, wonderful thing. I know this is being posted on April 1st, but here's one thing that is no joke: kids love technology, and this allows them to explore music in new and fun ways. Let’s take a look at second half of the Chrome Music Lab experiments.
The Melody Maker allows you to use colored blocks to create an 8 note melody. You have nearly two octaves to work with, set up in the major scale. This is a great tool for composition. My kids struggle with wanting to make their melodies very random, and the Melody Maker is a great visual way to show skips and steps. You can also click the button to the right of the play button to add an automatically created harmony. This is great to show the difference between one melody and harmony. There is a tempo control as well.
This experiment is a blast, especially if you have your own microphone. Record a very short (about 3 second) blurb, and then you can change the speed of the audio. Move the control to the right and you can hear your sound in slow-mo, or speed it up to chipmunk highs. Move the control to the left for the same effects, but your audio will be backwards. It is easiest to show this with instrument examples, but kids LOVE hearing themselves talk like backwards chipmunks.
This is a very simple experiment that explores harmonics both visually and aurally. Click each coil to hear the note. It is cool for kids to be able to see the relationship between the notes.
This is one of my favorites! It is a simple idea: take famous songs, display them like a piano roll, and play them. Clicking on two buttons allows you to go between a traditional piano sound and a more electronic sound. This is a useful visual if you want to listen to any of the songs. But the option of using your microphone is what makes this experiment genius. Record a short example, and that sound is used as the basis for all the notes. Ever want to hear what Beethoven’s 5th would sound like entirely on different cow bells or tone blocks? Now is your chance! Vocal sounds can be used too, and they are hilarious. My main advice is to use as low a sound as possible as your recorded example, because the songs get high and screechy if your original sound is high.
Another simple but fun experiment, Oscillators features creatures who open their mouths to show frequencies in certain shapes: square, sawtooth, triangle, and sine (waves). The current frequency is always shown. You can modify how high or low the sound is by stretching the character up or down. This is another useful way to show high vs. low, and the speed of the waves at different pitches.
This experiment has a set of 6 strings. 5 of the strings have been divided into 2 sections of different lengths. This is a great way to visually show how the size of a string (or any part of an instrument) relates to pitch. It is also a good opportunity to discuss one way music relates to fractions. Yay for cross-curricular discussions!
Chrome MusicLab is a very fun website, and kids love it enough to look it up outside of school. I’ve had several kids run up to tell me about the melody they got to make at home, or the song they composed the night before that was made entirely of triangles. Chrome Music Lab works as a focused tool to include in a lesson, but also as an opportunity for kids to play and explore. Any site that gets kids curious about music is good in my book!
Hope you and your students have fun with Chrome Music Lab!
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