Todd's Tuesday Tech Tip #7 Virtual Keyboards

Hello Colleagues,

Happy Tuesday!

Have you ever wanted to play the piano, pan pipe, saxophone, guitar, steel drum, double bass, pan pipe, flute or organ, but you only have a computer?  Well, with incredible websites like:  Virtual Keyboard you can do just that!  I can't believe how cool this is and I thought I was on top of all things cool that had to do with computers!


Below are the instructions for how to use the site Virtual Keyboard:
INSTRUCTION
To play single notes on the keyboard:
Click the mouse pointer on one of the ‘piano’ keys to hear the sound (Make sure you have your computer’s sound system switched on!) You can also press the letters on your keyboard to play the notes (see the diagram below). To use this feature make sure CAPS LOCK is off . 

Diagram of keys to press:

The selected instrument is shown by a green light above its name (the default instrument is a piano). The name of the instrument will also be displayed in the LCD panel to the right.

To change the sound, click on one of the nine different instruments. The screen will refresh and the button for your chosen instrument will light up green and its name will be displayed in LCD panel. Click the mouse pointer on a key to hear the new instrument.

The piano keyboard goes from ‘Middle C’ to ‘Upper F’ – one and a half octaves (18 different notes). The double bass is pitched lower but still tuned to ‘C’.

Drum Beats:
There are six different drum beats. Clicking on one of the drum beat buttons will turn on and off a ‘looped’ drum pattern. Clicking a different drum beat changes the pattern. The keyboard is still active so you can play along with the drums in either single or chord mode.


Chord Mode:
Clicking the ‘Chord Mode’ button turns on and off the chord facility. The chord mode allows you to select sets of notes by clicking on the piano keys. Clicking a note once turns it on and clicking it again turns it off. Once you have clicked on all the notes you want to make up your chord, click the ‘play chord’ button to hear it played. Clicking the ‘Chord Mode’ button resets all the keys and returns you to single note mode. Even in chord mode you can still activate the drum patterns.

Here is another site, it is called:  Kisstunes  It allows recording and playback, but only one instrument, the piano.


I found the attached song sheets on Tammy Worcester's tip blog.

HERE IS THE LINK TO THE SONG SHEETS



The next time you have a student birthday party, you can have one of the kids play Happy Birthday for them!  How do you think you might use this tool? Please be sure to leave a comment on the T4 site so that others can learn from you too!

Thanks,
Todd