Tuesday, 11 October 2022

Micro:bit musical instrument?

 Science Oxford Code Club is doing musical instruments on 22 October, but the current thinking is all about hitting, because that's quite easy with servos. How about a wind instrument? 

  • Source of wind - either operator or some sort of fan/funnel/concentrator/tube
  • Win instruments have 
    • a buzzer thing, like a reed instrument
    • a whistle, like a recorder
    • a flute-like transverse blowing arrangement
  • Needs variable pitch preferably
    • Change pipe length - slider like a trombone?
    • Change pipe length - stop off holes, like most instruments
    • Change pipe - like an organ, pan pipes etc.
I'm quite liking the idea of bottle-based pan pipes - easy to set up pitches, can be arranged in a radial pattern, servo can move pipe around the circumferential bottles from the centre. Servo position determines  bottle in use.

And then what about plucked instruments?? Servo could surely twang a string with a plectrum of some sort. Could also operate in both directions, up and down. Pitch variability hard, unless micro:bit can also operate some kind of pressing arrangement on frets, or, maybe a slide by rotating a roller with strings that move the slide up and down the string.

Lots to work on here!

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