arrow_back Write a Song

Music is often an important part of telling stories.

The right music played at a key point in a story can help your audience connect with your characters and plot by conveying emotions like fright, happiness, excitement, or anger.

In this add-on, you'll learn how to use the note and drum blocks to create a song.

Then you'll experiment with them to code your very own song for your story.

To start, click on the stage where you'll be programming your song.

First, your song needs a strong foundation.

You'll start your song by programming the beat.

To begin, drag out a play drum block.

Click it to test it.

(drumming)

You should hear a drum sound.

Click the drum drop-down menu and select a different drum sound.

You can choose any drum sound you like for your song and your story.

(cymbals clanging)

Great.

Now, drum beats work by looping sound.

Which means that the drum sound will play over and over to create a beat for the song.

To loop the beat, click control, select a forever loop and place it around the play drum block.

Click it to test.

(cymbals clanging)

Okay, so now you have a looping drum sound.

Now its time to create the other parts of your song.

Most songs have a four beat count per measure.

Which means they repeat a pattern every time you count to four.

So add three more drum blocks to this loop and play around with the drum options.

You're going to layer other sounds on top of this beat, so change the beat value of each block to one to ensure that everything gets layered correctly.

If you want your beat to play faster, drag out a set tempo to block and choose a faster tempo.

When a drummer plays though, they usually hit more than one drum at a time.

So to make your beat more complex, right click and duplicate the block stack you just made and again tinker with the drum values until you have a beat you like.

Consider repeating the same drum value a few times in a loop.

Now that you have two drum sounds playing, sync them together using a when flag clicked event.

Click the flag to hear how they sound together.

(high energy music)

Continue to try different drums until you have a sound you like for your story.

Remember though, you can always come back to the drums to make them sound different.

Next, you need to program a melody to play on top of the beat that you just created.

Drag out a play note block.

You're going to loop this sound too, so place a forever block around it.

Click the block stack to hear how one note sounds when it is looped.

(notes playing)

Again, add three more notes to this loop to create a four count.

Make sure the beat value is one to match the drum beat.

Try out some different notes until you have a melody that you like.

(high energy music)

Then sync it with the drum beat using a green flag event.

(high energy music)

Great.

To make this song fit your story, and sound the way you want it to, experiment with a few different instruments for the melody.

Place a set instrument block before the loop and tinker with the various instruments to see how they sound in your song.

(high energy music)

Great.

Now it's your turn.

First, add four play drum blocks to a forever loop and change the beat value to one.

Second, duplicate that block stack to make another drum beat.

Third, sync those drum beats with a when flag clicked event.

Fourth, add four play note blocks to a forever loop.

Try out some different sounds.

And then finally, experiment with different instruments for the melody.

Again, you can tinker and try out all sorts of different sounds to create music for your story.

Try different sounds until you get something that you enjoy.