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In a song, Melody is the movement speed (duration) of your music
from one note to another note. Melody using the Tempo option.
Maker is based on a grid-like structure-
a collection of 14 x 8 cells (14 rows How can children understand Melody
and 8 columns) as seen in figure-4. Maker as a mathematical activity?
Each cell corresponds to a melody. Like Rhythm, this activity also involves
One can play 14 different sounds in permutation and combination of various
this structure. Sounds vary in pitch cells. Arrangement of various cells at
as one goes through the lowermost different positions also leads to spatial
row to the top row. In each column, thinking. Children can create their own
only one cell can be selected (played) pattern using coloured cells- musical
at a time. Cells corresponding to a and colour pattern; and compare with
particular position (row, column) can patterns made by their peers. They can
be identified with a colour. Although change the tempo of their melody piece
there are 14 cells (different sounds), and understand this action in terms of
these are represented by 7 colours in an fraction, multiplication and division.
ordered way. One can select some cells Some activities have been suggested:
at different positions and listen to the
melody created. There is an option of a. Pattern Building
switching the sound quality from piano
to guitar etc. One can also increase or • Exercises can be developed based
decrease the speed of the melody using on the pattern exercises discussed
the tempo option. Here, the range of for Rhythm.
tempo is 70-140 (measured in beats per • Children can be asked to explain the
minute). colour pattern and musical pattern
(rule) of their melody.
Steps to play and create music:
• They can also be asked to create
1. Go to https://musiclab. a melody based on a fixed (given)
chromeexperiments.com pattern.
2. Tap on Melody Maker • The cells can be played at odd

3. Tap on any cell in one of the columns positions, even positions, equal
to play notes. intervals, random intervals.
4. Tap on some cells in any row.
b. Ratio and proportion:
(By repeating steps 3 & 4, one can get • Like Rhythm, children can be
used to the working of cells)
asked to create melody and find
5. Tap on cells based on some pattern out the ratio of different colours
and then click the play button. The (sounds) generated. They can also
melody starts repeating after the be provided with a ratio of colours
last column. One can listen to the and asked to make a melody based
pattern. on this. “Are there multiple ways/
combinations to create melody
6. One can increase or decrease the
174 Indian Journal of Educational Technology
Volume 3, Issue 2, July 2021