Problem

You want to connect a speaker to the micro:bit pin 0.

Solution

How It Works

By default, MakeCode expects the speaker to be connected through micro:bit’s pin 0 through the edge connector using alligator (crocodile) clips. A speaker has two wires: positive (usually red) and negative (usually black). Some speakers use different color codes for positive and negative leads. With some speakers, you must solder wires to the solder tabs before using them.

Pin 0 is the default pin used to generate music.

Problem

You want to connect a speaker to a micro:bit pin1.

Solution

How It Works

Problem

You want to connect an earphone with the micro:bit to listen to music.

Solution

You can use alligator (crocodile) clips to connect an earphone to the micro:bit without cutting off the jack. Figure 11-5 shows how you can make the wire connections. The steps below further explain the hack.

• Take two alligator (crocodile) leads (black and red).

• Connect one end of the black alligator lead to the micro:bit GND and the other end to the base of your earphone jack.

• Connect one end of the red crocodile lead to the micro:bit pin 0 and the other end to the tip of the earphone jack.

How It Works

If you don’t have a speaker, you can still use your micro:bit with earphones. Earphones produce quiet music and are better for testing purposes. If you don’t have alligator leads, just cut off the earphone jack and connect the leads to the edge connector (tip to pin 0 and base to GND) of the micro:bit. However, pre-built audio cables are available to quickly connect earphone or headphones to the micro:bit. You can simply plug the earphone jack to the 3.5 mm socket of the audio cable and connect two crocodile clips to the edge connector of the micro:bit.

Problem

You want to play tunes loudly with a micro:bit .

Solution

Figure 11-6 shows the wiring between the two boards.

How It Works

Some vendors offer speakers with a built-in amplifier to make louder music. MonkMakes ( https://www.monkmakes.com/ ) manufactures a speaker breakout module with a built-in amplifier to produce loud music. It also has a built-in LED to indicate power. The MonkMakes speaker module uses three wires for connectivity and draws additional power from the micro:bit’s 3V pin.

Problem

You want to play a built-in melody .

Solution

How It Works

Problem

You want to play the note Middle C when button A is pressed.

Solution

How It Works

The ring tone (Hz) block allows you to play a tone of specific frequency. The default frequency of the ring tone block is set to 262 Hz (tone), which is Middle C (note). When you click on the parameter box of the ring tone block, a 21-key visual piano keyboard (Figure 11-9 ) will display and allows you to choose a note.

When you choose a note from the visual piano keyboard, the frequency of the note will display in the parameter box of the ring tone (Hz) block. If you know the frequency of the note you want to play, just type the frequency in the parameter box without choosing it from the visual piano keyboard. The precision of the frequency of a note is ± 1 Hz. As an example, for Middle C, the valid frequencies are 261, 262, and 263 Hz (Figure 11-10 ).

If you type a frequency that does not belongs to a note, the ring tone (Hz) block will recognize it as a tone (Figure 11-11 ).

You can also play tones not belonging to the music notes in human hearable range (20 Hz–20000 Hz). Figure 11-12 shows the code to play a 15,000 Hz tone for 4 beats. Can you hear?

All notes are tones but not all tones are notes. In other words, notes are taken from the frequency range (20 Hz to 20 kHz) that humans can hear.

In music, sharp (#) means higher in pitch. More specifically, in musical notation, sharp means "higher in pitch by one semitone (half step)." Sharp is the opposite of flat, which is a lowering of pitch. As an example, the Middle C# resides halfway between Middle C (262 Hz) and Middle D (294 Hz).

Musical notes can have flats and sharps known as accidentals. A flat can be written as b (lowercase), and a sharp can be written as # (hash).

Sharps and flats are not the black keys. All black keys are either a sharp or flat, but not all sharps and flats are black keys. Remember, an accidental (a sharp or flat) merely means to play the next higher or lower key on a piano, and that next key may be black or white (Figure 11-13 ).

Figure 11-14 shows how to play sharps and flats using MakeCode. Here are the sound of the notes that you can hear:

• C# - C Sharp

• Ab - A Flat

• Cb - C Flat

Problem

You want to play the musical note C in octave 3 .

Solution

How It Works

In music, an octave or perfect octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. Generally, a piano keyboard consists of keys spanning octaves. Figure 11-16 shows an octave of a piano keyboard.

An octave has seven musical notes (C, D, E, F, G, A, B). A musical note can present with its octave (octave number) to indicate the position of the key on the keyboard. You can write a musical note with its octave as follows.

NOTE[octave]

As an example, the musical note C in octave 3 can be written as C3.

By default, micro:bit plays musical notes in octave 4 unless you explicitly mention it. As an example, the musical note C is equivalent to C4.

Problem

You want to play a note for 4 beats.

Solution

How It Works

By default, the duration of a beat is 500 milliseconds.

When you run the above code, the Middle C will play for 2 seconds.

The duration of a beat specifies the arbitrary length of time defined by tempo.

Problem

You want to set the tempo to 400 for your music.

Solution

How It Works

Tempo defines the speed of a piece of music. In your code, the default amount of the tempo is 120. Tempo can be expressed in bpm (beats per minute). You can set the tempo for the music using the set tempo to (bpm) block. You can type any positive value for the tempo, but MakeCode recommends 4 to 400.

When you change the tempo, the duration of a beat gets changed accordingly. By default, the duration of a beat is 500 milliseconds for the tempo, 120. You can calculate the duration of a beat in milliseconds for a given tempo as follows.

If you want to change the tempo to a different value during the music, use change tempo by (bpm) block. Figure 11-21 shows an example code to change the tempo from 400 to 300.

The larger the tempo value, the faster the notes (tunes) will play.

Problem

You want to get the current tempo in beats per minute.

Solution

How It Works

The tempo (bpm) block returns the tempo in beats per minute.

Problem

You want to get the duration of a beat in milliseconds.

Solution

How It Works

By default, the beat block returns the duration of a beat in milliseconds. It also returns the duration of 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 2, and 4 beats.

Problem

You want to display a happy icon once the happy birthday melody has ended.

Solution

How It Works

Problem

You want to add 2 seconds of silence between two notes.

Solution

How It Works

The reset(ms) block allows you to add silence between notes, tones, or melodies. The duration of a silence can be in beats or milliseconds. Figure 11-26 shows how to use 2000 milliseconds to add a duration for silence.