Music is something that most people love. So making it a fun learning experience through hands-on experiments encourages playing with rhymes, sounds, and tunes.
Google created Chrome Music Lab (CML) in 2016. This is a simple to use online resource for students and music teachers.
Coders and musicians have worked together on Chrome and web audio with freely accessible tools that let you use code to create sounds.
The goal of Chrome Music Lab is to let visitors visualize and touch sound to see what it looks like, learn how tunes work, create rhythms, and turn drawings into music.
The CML website has sections called experiments that allow people of all ages to explore how music works. Each test has a different focussuch as piano rolls, song generators, harmonics, voice recorders, and sound waves.
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How does Chrome Music Lab work?
Chrome Music Lab is intuitive and simple music software. Bright and colorful features make it accessible and friendly to people of all ages.
CML share open source so that musicians and programmers can build their own tests. Anyone across devices can open it immediately and start playing without waiting for the app to download and install.
The easier it is for people to discover music, the more engaging it is for people to be curious, creative, and inspired. Many experiments can only be used immediately and in situ. This means you won’t be able to download, export, or share your work.
Two of the tests let you share, embed, and download your works. Those two tests are the Song Maker and the Melody Generator.
How to create tunes using Chrome Music Lab
Start by going to Website CML and click Melody Maker navigation. You can see the name of each test by placing the pointer inside the block.
Melody maker has a simple interface. Simply click on the different boxes. Each note box is different. Try clicking a few boxes and then pressing Play to listen to your tunes.
The lower the block, the lower the sound. To change the speed, move the blue ball to the left to make it slower.
Make the music faster by moving the blue ball to the right.
Play around with boxes until you create something you like. Click on a sound to delete it. The tune below is the first part of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
The orange button next to the play button repeats the tune you’ve created.
How to use Chrome Music Lab Song Maker
Chrome Music Lab Song Maker is the most extensive project with various options you can use.
The default display has two octaves. Like Melody Maker, you click on color-coded tiles to hear the notes associated with each tile.
The bold blue lines every two cells represent a span. Alternating gray and white sections represent musical measures.
Clicking the Marimba icon at the bottom will change the sound to a different instrument.
Additional melody instrument options are piano, string, woodwind, and synth.
To delete or delete a note, click the note. If you want to delete multiple notes at once, hold down the mouse button and drag over the notes you want to delete.
Or you can use Undo at the bottom right hand side.
With Song Maker, you can play multiple notes at once making it sound like a chord.
Use the block tab at the bottom of the screen to change the rhythm sound. The options are conga, electronic, block and set.
Change the speed or tempo by moving the blue ball at the bottom.
Try different options to choose the one you like best. You can also use the microphone icon to record your voice or any other sound you want to add.
When you’re done creating your song, click Save in the lower right corner. You will see a popup showing link to view your song.
Or you can share your song to Facebook and Twitter, copy the embed code to put on a website, or download a Midi or Wav file.
How to create harmonies & chords
If there’s something on your canvas and you want to start another project, click Restart in the top right corner of the screen.
Let’s start by holding the mouse for two beats and scale it up as shown in the screenshot below.
Create harmony for a third by adding blocks as seen in the screenshot below. We’ve added two spans in blocks 2, 3, 4 and 5 below that show one-third intervals. Listen to the harmonies here.
Now create chords from the mix in Chrome Music Lab. Add a fifth interval to create each chord in the screenshot below.
Listen to the pronunciation of the chords here.
How to Make Cool Sounds with Chrome Music Lab’s Oscillator
Start by going to the CML homepage and clicking on Oscillators.
Oscillators produce sound by oscillating at a specific frequency at a steady rate. Change the frequency by dragging the widget up or down. Use the arrows to change the oscillator type.
Try it out, by going to https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Oscillators/. Move the oscillator up and down and listen to the sound they make.
What do spectrograms do?
See the frequencies that make up sound in a colorful picture with the Spectrogram.
Compare Spectrum of different sounds. Start with selecting an instrument or sound source from the bottom part of the screen.
The image below shows a visual representation of the frequencies produced by the harp.
You can also use the microphone to record your own sounds, or draw on the screen to create abstract funky sounds.
Start creating music and sounds with Chrome Music Lab
Ready to start experimenting with Chrome Music Lab to see what kind of sounds and tracks you can create? It’s simple to get started. Go straight ahead Website CML and try some experiments.
