Sound¶
Micro:bit can be used to play simple tunes, provided that you connect a speaker to your board.
If you are using headphones you can use crocodile clips to connect your micro:bit to headphones:
Warning
You cannot control the volume of the sound level from the micro:bit. Please be very careful if you were using headphones. A speaker is a safer choice while working with sound.
You can also connect your micro:bit to a speaker using crocodile clips:
Basic Functions¶
Play a tune¶
To play a tune you can use the play
function:
from microbit import *
import music
music.play(music.NYAN)
Note
You must import the music
module to play and control sound.
The music module includes a number of built-in tunes. Here’s some of them:
music.DADADADUM
music.ENTERTAINER
music.PRELUDE
music.ODE
music.NYAN
music.RINGTONE
Make your own tune¶
To play a tune, specify the note (C,D,E,F,G,A,B; including sharps (eg.: C#)) to play. Optionally, it’s possible to specify the octave (1-8) and the duration it will be played for:
from microbit import *
import music
# Play a 'C'
music.play('C')
# Play a 'C' for 4 beats long
music.play('C:4')
# Play a 'C' in octave number 3 for 4 beats long
music.play('C3:4')
Playing a series of notes one after the other is easy, you just put the notes you want to play in a list:
from microbit import *
import music
# Tune: Frere Jacques
tune = ["C4:4", "D4:4", "E4:4", "C4:4", "C4:4", "D4:4", "E4:4", "C4:4",
"E4:4", "F4:4", "G4:8", "E4:4", "F4:4", "G4:8"]
music.play(tune)
Micro:bit will remember the octave of the note defined previously. Hence, the tune above can be rewritten as follows:
tune = ["C4:4", "D4:4", "E4:4", "C:4", "C:4", "D:4", "E:4", "C:4",
"E:4", "F4:4", "G4:8", "E:4", "F:4", "G:8"]
Advanced Functions¶
You can also specify the note you want to play using its frequency using the pitch
method. For example, to create a police siren effect
while True:
for freq in range(880, 1760, 16):
music.pitch(freq, 6)
for freq in range(1760, 880, -16):
music.pitch(freq, 6)
Can you guess what this does? Each time around the loop a new frequency is calculated by adding (or subtracting) 16.
Practice questions¶
- Make up your own tune.
- Make a musical instrument. Change the pitch of the sound played based on the readings from the accelerometer.