alice-teacher one octave song - birds

[Donald Slater]

Yvonne,

If I understand your question correctly, you might try this.

Work your way through the tutorial, and at the end of the tutorial, exit the tutorial, and then save the world. This will save the tutorial world for you to experiment with.

In Alice, take a look at the sing scale() method.

You will see this has each of the penguins execute their sinNote method in order.

Each penguin knows how to sing a particular note, and each note will be sung in approximately 1 second.

You should be able to create another method that will allow you to order your penguins into the melody line of the new sing that you want them to perform. This will give you the melody of your song, but not the correct rhythm.

The use of the doTogether in the singSong method is really confusing, and I would not attempt to duplicate it.

Instead, I would introduce the students to parameters, and for the singNote method of each penguin, I would create a parameter, called “beat”.

In each singNote method, there is a call to the playSound method (which plays the sound file recording of the note the penguin is singing). Set the duration of this playSound method to the beat parameter. (See the attached screen shot, which shows the redPenguin singNote method.

This will now allow each penguin sing a whole note (i second), a half note (.5 seconds), a quarter note (.25 seconds), and an eighth note (.125 seconds). Modify your newSong method, add ing the appropriate parameter values to create the approximate rhythm of your song.

You might also notice that I modified the howFast variable (which controls the animation of the penguin), so that it’s value is ⅛ the value of the beat parameter.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions or need more explanation.

All the best,

Don Slater

Alice Project
Carnegie Mellon University
Entertainment Technology Center
700 Technology Drive
Pittsburgh, PA 15219

Email: dslater at cmu.edu

I have learned this at least by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
--- Henry David Thoreau

The true object of all human life is play. -- G.K. Chesterton


> On Mar 24, 2016, at 8:44 AM, Lee, Yvonne via alice-teachers <alice-teachers at lists.andrew.cmu.edu> wrote:
> 
> Hi ,  
> 
> I have difficulty showing the students  how to  program  a different "one octave song"  that
> is different than the theme song to the Flintstones.
> 
> specifically - changing the sequence, order, and the timing of the birds singing.
> 
> I have reviewed the tutorial several times  and the text book too. 
> my students and I were able to search the internet for many famous
> one octave songs,  determined the sequence, and the timing.
> yet find there is very little instruction... in the text 
> chapter one and the Appendix - to change the sequence, order and the timing of the birds singing.
> 
> 
> 
> Please advise. 
> 
> Yvonne Lee, Hon. B.A., OCT
> Thistletown  C.I.
> Toronto District School Board
> 40 Fordwich Crescent
> Toronto Ontario
> M9W 2T4
> 
> Phone 416 394 7710
> Fax     416-394 7726
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why Wait, Just Do It.
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