Post your findings to your Google Classroom Wall!
For next week: Chords and Chord progressions: Frankie Knuckles and Jamie Principle's house classic 'Your Love'. At the end, if you're at a loose end, try to make it yourselves using the video.
First, make sure you are fully clear with your understanding of how in_thread works with different samples.
In Google Classroom, you should have this Google Slides document.
Go to page 34 if you’re on activity 3 and this requires A LOT of practice with different sample loops.
You need to make a ‘Sample :loop_amen’ or other sample and practice playing in_thread loops with the ‘loop do’ command.
Effects and Randomness
You'll need to use the Midi keyboard numbers below to understand the video links. In Sonic Pi you can play both notes A4# and 70 and they play the same note.
Later we will be using chords to make tracks and we will be using a mix of midi and musical notation such as C4 (60) + D4 (62) + E4 (64). However basic this is, it isn't the best chord to use on its own by any means. Mostly, we'll be using the very famous 1, 4, 5 chord progression used in 100s of hit songs.
If you're wondering what they are, they are chords of C Major, F Major, G and E Minor. Google this or see this link later!
Learning Synth Parameters
What are you learning here: making sounds louder, quieter and moving sound from one side of your headphones to the other. Follow what is in the tutorial and play with the numbers/ values of Pan, amp, Rrand, Rrand_i .
What works and what breaks?
How can you use these values with synths and samples? What sounds good, what sounds terrible?
Add them to your Google classroom wall and share each other's ideas.
Watch this to find out how it all adds together.
Randomness: Play rrand (60,85), amp: rrand (0.25-1.5)
Here, we will learn about the beauty of randomness and how easy it is to do on a computer. Making truly random musical notes as a human is very hard because we are naturally wired to listen to sounds that 'fit' together. In this respect, it's almost mathematical. If you play guitar, the frets are a great example of this.
Check out the video below and follow part 9. See if you can create a random track from a list of notes.
Which synths or samples sound good together? Ambi_choir would sound great in this as a low and high sound together.
Could you use a live_loop to play two rrand commands together? Can you make the notes play alternately? Say with a sleep first on one, then a straight to notation on the second?
loop do
sleep 0.5
play rrand(45, 65)
end
in_thread do
loop do
play rrand(45, 65)
sleep 0.5
end
end
Try these out.
A little Fun. You can learn to play Frankie Knuckles and Jamie Principle's track your Love Transfer this video into Sonic Pi.
Learning Intention:
Can I code music?
Success Criteria:
I can create simple notes.
I can link notes together.
I can create notes from Midi numbers and play in a random order.
I can create simple loop.
I can splice synths and beats together.