During the pandemic, music teachers were scrambling to find online resources they could teach their students remotely, since making music in-person was no longer possible. Chrome Music Lab was one option that continued to surface. It’s a readily available website, free, and offers some great learning opportunities in musical play, composition, and music theory.
There are a number of programs to choose from on the website including: Shared Piano, Melody Maker, Spectrogram, and Kandinsky. Each of these programs offer learning opportunities but the two I have used most in my classroom are Shared Piano and Song Maker. Apart from some latency issues, both these programs (especially Song Maker) have worked well on both class sets of iPads and Chromebooks. I experimented to see how usable this program is on mobile devices.
The main pro for Chrome Music Lab on mobile devices is that it’s incredibly easy to get started. There’s no app to be installed, or account to set up. Additionally, it’s incredibly easy to share songs and collaborate. Simply copy and paste, and text the link to a friend. Or, use the camera option to scan a QR code (which can be done less awkwardly than its tablet counterpart).
There are downfalls of using Chrome Music Lab on mobile devices though. The main downfall is awkwardness in usability, and fewer functions. For example, on the laptop version of Shared Piano, instead of clicking each note on the keyboard, you can use your own keyboard which closer resembles playing a real keyboard. Moreover, when making longer and more complex songs on Song Maker, the smaller screen limits your view. The screen doesn’t fully expand either when tilting the phone horizontally. Also, being that it is an internet website, students would either need data or Wi-Fi to connect, whereas other apps may not need the internet connection (this would be the same issue for using Chrome Music Lab on a laptop).
Although there are downfalls to using Chrome Music Lab on mobile devices, I believe it’s a viable option and can still offer great learning opportunities. It would work especially well if there are not enough laptops/tablets for the whole class, students want easy collaboration, or they would like to continue to work on the program at home. I’m curious, have you used Chrome Music Lab in the past personally or in a classroom, and have you tried it on a mobile device?
This looks exceedingly cool. Although I am not a music teacher, I love music and find it is often forgotten about in the complexity of public education. After trying the website, for probably too long, I can say that it is very fun, but I can see how to would be difficult to use properly on a mobile device. It seems to have incredible potential as a tool to show theory, where you can have students try and meet certain targets, like note length or chords in a creative way without having to deal with notation.
This is the first time I’ve heard of Chrome Music Lab, but I can see it being a great tool for music teachers to use. As a teacher myself, I want to know how you used this application in class. What were your learning objectives and how did you use this tool into a class activity?
Great questions, Bianca! There’s quite a bit you can do with it. I’ve fluctuated with having it quite structured, and more open-ended. For a more open-ended concept, I may have students create whatever song they’d like, but they have to focus on tempo. They would choose a speed and explain why they choose that speed for this specific song.
For something more structured, students can also practice different intervals on melody maker, and rhythms on song maker (focusing on a rhythmic pattern we’ve covered in class). Other times, I start a song for them, and they have to finish the song on their own or in a group. There are quite a few tutorials on YouTube that give ideas on this. Here’s on example of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux5GGCi9RbE
Hope that helps!
Thanks for sharing this! I like the idea of justifying speed. This shows students that music can evoke feelings and sometimes memories.
I was in band class for my high school life. We played music all the time (it was great!) but now I wished we had this as a part of our class. I remember I had some problems with sight reading and my problems were with rhythm. I think this is another outlet for me to practice because I would have had the chance to play with a piece of music. I also like these practical applications because it shows that music isn’t just about playing instruments. Music production and mixing is also a big industry. This is a good foray into those industries.
I haven’t used music lab but I know some of the teachers I worked with played around with some mobile music mixing softwares like mix pad. Mix pad has the ability to take songs and add preloaded effects like different instrument sounds, and beats. It also allows user to cut clips, slow down speed up and loop music. The teacher only had a limited knowledge of the background but the program was intuitive sand accessible to use and some of the fun of this was playing around and learning as you go
Thanks for sharing, Meagan. I haven’t heard of that program yet. Just did a bit of digging and saw that it’s a free app. Do you know what age group the teacher was using the program for? What it just with pre-recorded sounds, or were students recording their own singing/instruments too? Thanks again for the recommendation.