Thanks for watching this video about The Whacky Wizards SONG WIZARD. While the other two apps on the website, (the Rhythm Tutor and the Whacky Looper) are primarily concerned with using boomwhackers as rhythmic instruments, the song wizard is all about making melodies. While some aspects of the interface are similar between all the apps, this tool is distinct in its purpose and has some unique features.

The Song Wizard is the flagship of the Whacky Wizards project. It’s an idea several years in the making. It has been inspired by smash video games like Guitar Hero and Rock band, as well as educational tools like Synthesia. The goal of the song wizard is to have you and your class playing familiar melodies in minutes, and have a lot of fun while doing it.

One of the main purposes of the Song Wizard, and indeed as I’ve explained about all of the Whacky Wizards apps, is to use them to incorporate game-based learning to music. While there are many Aspects to this approach, the key is to always keep the learning at the crucial cusp that is just higher than the students’ current abilities. There are many features built into the Song Wizard to help you do this offering new challenges to overcome and levels to unlock every time you open the app.

THE MAIN WINDOW

The main window houses the ‘dropping balls’ interface that indicates when individual boomwhackers are to be played. The balls along the threshold line indicate which pitches will be used for the song in question. When a colored ball will begins dropping from the top of the window, it indicates that the boomwhacker of the corresponding color will play its note in the melody soon. When the ball reaches the threshold line, it will illuminate with a white ring that indicates that the note should be struck at that moment. Balls will continue to drop until the song is finished.

PLAYING ALONG

The most wonderful, yet challenging thing about playing melodies with boomwhackers is that it requires teamwork. Unless they are an octopus, one person can’t possibly play all the notes in the song by themselves. It takes multiple players to play any song in the app, as each player is responsible for only one or two of the pitches used in the melody.

If you are using the song wizard with younger children, just starting out with boomwhackers, or learning a new song, you might want to assign only one boomwhacker per student. In this case, it doesn’t really matter how the boomwhackers are distributed, but you will probably want to try use an equal amount of each pitch required. So for example, in a class of 18 students doing Twinkle Twinkle little star, which uses 6 pitches, you would three of each of the indicated Boomewhackers. Try grouping the children to mirror the position of the notes on the screen.

As soon as they are able, get your students to start working with two boomwhackers each. Being responsible for two pitches in a song is a lot more challenging at first but ultimately is very doable. To keep the songs fresh, make sure that you change the distribution of instruments often. See the lesson on the Rhythm Tutor for examples of how to accomplish this.

Alternating the interval pairings that the children use also completely changes the skills required to play a song. See the example lesson for Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the website for more details. 

As with the Rhythm Tutor and Whacky Looper, I recommend that players hold the lower pitched boomwhacker in their left hand, and the higher pitch in their right.

PLAYBACK CONTROLS

The Play/Pause button will start or pause the song in question, while the stop button will stop and reset to the beginning. The step forward or back buttons will advance or rewind the song by two measures of music, while the jump forward or back buttons take you to the beginning or the end of the song.

The time slider below the playback controls will show the elapsed and remaining time left in the song and can also be used to move to a particular position within the song.

CHOOSE A SONG MENU

This menu allows you to choose from a number of different songs. Anytime a new song is chosen, the boomwhacker timer wheel will appear as the song loads.

The default pattern is a basic ascending and descending two-octave scale using both capped and uncapped boomwhackers. This is not designed to be the place to start, but to demonstrate the full range of the boomwhacker scales. There will be a separate lesson to give suggestions for teaching with this scale and the scale in the Whacky Looper. The important thing to note here is that when a boomwhacker is to be played with an octave cap, it’s circle on the threshold line will be outlined with a BLACK RING.

There are 10 choices in the default Song Wizard app that roughly increase in difficulty or introduce new musical elements from top to bottom. See the notes that accompany this lesson for more details about the particularities of each song.

CHOOSE AN ACCOMPANIMENT MENU

The accompaniments provided fill out a harmonic structure for the songs and give the students an opportunity to feel like they are playing along with something. Anytime a new accompaniment is chosen, the boomwhacker timer wheel will appear as the song resets and loads.

While the musical content of the accompaniment does not really change with the different choices, the virtual instruments used to play the accompaniments do. This provides an excellent opportunity to talk to the children about instrument families and the concept of musical timbres and genres. It also provides the opportunity for different students to have some input about what accompaniment should be used. See the written resources that accompany this lesson for more ideas.

TEMPO SLIDER

The tempo slider works exactly as in the Rhythm Tutor or Whacky Looper. Moving the slider to the left will slow down the tempo, moving to the right will increase it. The tempo is always indicated in BPM, or beats per minute. When the tempo of the song is adjusted, the timer on the time slider will also change to indicate the new length of the song in minutes and seconds.

VOLUME AND MUTE

As with the other apps, the volume level of the boomwhacker melody and the accompaniments can be adjusted to your preference.

If you want to just focus on the melody created by the boomwhackers, you can lower or mute the accompaniment volume. One challenge or goal you can present to your students is to learn the song well enough to actually mute the melody and see how well your students can play along just to the accompaniment.

NOTE NAME AND BALL DROP SWITCHES

The note name switch will remove the letters from the balls on the threshold line. This might be helpful to some children to help them simply focus on the color of their boomwhacker. Leaving the letter names on can help any children with color-blindness to know which balls to follow.

Turning the ball drop switch off removes the dropping ball animation, indicating only when to play by highlighting the notes at the correct time. Use this feature only when you students know a particular song well and are ready for a challenge.

LOOP SONG AND ACCELERATED LOOP SWITCHES

The default setting for the app is to simply play the song through once. If you want to practice a particular song a few times over without having to restart it every time, turn on the Loop Song switch. The song will go back to just playing once if the switch is turned off.

When the Loop Song switch is turned on, the accelerate loop switch is activated. When this switch is turned on, the song jumps by 10 BPM every repetition, up to a max of 200 BPM.

Activating this switch can lead to a lot of silliness, but kids love it. It is a good way to gauge the speed where they are actually able to still play the song well for regular practice.

THE WHACKY WIZARDS LOGO

As with the other apps, clicking on the logo will take you back to the Whacky Wizards homepage.

FINAL THOUGHTS

While there is a limited number of songs available in the basic Song Wizard app, I aimed to design it so that there were many possible ways to switch things up, focus on different skills, and keep things fresh. These include:

• using one or two boomwhackers per player
• using different interval pairings per player
• grouping interval pairings in your classroom, or spreading them out
• Playing the song slower or faster (Sometimes very slow is just as hard or harder than playing fast)
• Changing the accompaniment
• Turning letter names on or off
• Turning the ball drop animation on or off
• Looping the song, or using the accelerated loop

When the situation allows, you can also try singing along as you play the boomwhackers. The lyrics to each song are included in the resource section of this lesson.

I want to add that for me, while the ultimate goal is ALWAYS to have fun and make meaningful connections with making music, the ideal trajectory for the Song Wizard is that eventually these songs are learned well enough that they could be played without the assistance of the app. Using the app as a tool on the path to making music independently, relying solely on listening and timing skills, would be a fantastic objective for any class.

I would love to see your comments about this lesson or any feedback or experiences using the app that you could share in the comments section below.

As always, thanks for watching. See you soon.

While there is a limited number of songs available in the basic Song Wizard app, I aimed to design it so that there were many possible ways to switch things up, focus on different skills, and keep things fresh. These include:

• using one or two boomwhackers per player
• using different interval pairings per player
• grouping interval pairings in your classroom, or spreading them out
• Playing the song slower or faster (Sometimes very slow is just as hard or harder than playing fast)
• Changing the accompaniment
• Turning letter names on or off
• Turning the ball drop animation on or off
• Looping the song, or using the accelerated loop

Lyrics for Song Wizard Songs

You may try to get to a point where your students can sing the lyrics and play the Boomwhackers at the same time. This is a fantastic and fun challenge. Put the song on the loop setting to play multiple verses. 

TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE STAR

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.

For all verses (5), visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinkle,_Twinkle,_Little_Star

MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB

Mary had a little lamb,
Little lamb, little lamb,
Mary had a little lamb
Whose fleece was white as snow.

For all verses (8), visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Had_a_Little_Lamb#Text

ODE TO JOY

Ode To Joy is the triumphant orchestra and choir finale from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. The original lyrics are in German, but this is a popular English translation:

Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee,
God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flow’rs before Thee,
Op’ning to the sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness;
Drive the dark of doubt away;
Giver of immortal gladness,
Fill us with the light of day!

For all verses (4), visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hymn_of_Joy

AU CLAIR DE LA LUNE

Au clair de la lune,
Mon ami Pierrot,
Prête-moi ta plume
Pour écrire un mot.
Ma chandelle est morte,
Je n’ai plus de feu.
Ouvre-moi ta porte
Pour l’amour de Dieu

For all verses (4), visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Au_clair_de_la_lune#Lyrics

THIS OLD MAN

This old man, he played one,
He played knick-knack on my drum;
With a knick-knack paddywhack,
Give a dog a bone,
This old man came rolling home.

For all verses (10), visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Old_Man#Lyrics

THREE LITTLE KITTENS

The three little kittens, they lost their mittens,
And they began to cry.
“Oh Mother dear, we sadly fear,
Our mittens we have lost.”
“What? Lost your mittens? You naughty kittens,
Then you shall have no pie.”
“Meow, meow, meow, meow,
Then we shall have no pie.”

For a modern version see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0VW5f8iezs&ab_channel=Cocomelon-NurseryRhymes

To see the lyrics to the original nursery rhyme: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Little_Kittens

A-TISKET A-TASKET

A-tisket a-tasket
A green and yellow basket
I wrote a letter to my friend
And on the way I dropped it,
I dropped it, I dropped it,
And on the way I dropped it.
A little boy he picked it up
And put it in his pocket.

For more details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-Tisket,_A-Tasket

THE MUFFIN MAN

Do you know the muffin man,
The muffin man, the muffin man.
Do you know the muffin man,
Who lives on Drury Lane?

Yes, I know the muffin man,
The muffin man, the muffin man,
Yes, I know the muffin man,
Who lives on Drury Lane.

See link for an interesting game that can be played with the song: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Muffin_Man

OH, SUSANNA

Oh, I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee!
Going to Louisiana, my true love for to see.
Oh Susanna! Oh don’t you cry for me!
For I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee.

For all verses (4), visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh!_Susanna#Modern_version