Introduction
Contents
Orientation
Menu Bar
Blocks
Edit Block
tuneblocks.com
The Playroom Area  

 

The Playroom Area is the user's primary work space. This is where melodies and rhythms are built. The PlayRoom lies below the Tools Area and is the second largest area in the main Impromptu window. Tuneblocks and Drumblocks are dragged from the Blocks Area into the PlayRoom Area to be assembled, re-assembled, and played. Impromptu highlights the Tuneblocks that are currently being played back. This is indicated with a bold red square around a Block.

The Playroom displays one or more voice. Each voice has a block area and a set of voice controls

Playrooms and Playroom Selection

The Playrooms Menu lets the user select a project environment. Each project environment includes an appropriate format of the Playroom Area and an associated Catalog of tunes. Refer to the text book, Developing Musical Intuitions, for the theory and activities associated with each of the following five project environments:

Tuneblocks The project environment for the construction of tunes with Tuneblocks. Only one active voice is displayed in this mode.
Drummer The project environment for working with percussion sounds and rhythms. The playroom contains one melody voice and up to three accompanying percussion voices. A tune listed in the Drummer Catalog usually includes the melody line, and Drum Blocks for building the rhythm accompaniments.

Note: The Rounds, Harmonize, and 4-Voices playrooms mentioned in Developing Musical Intuitions are not implmemented in Impromptu 2.0 Beta 1.

Playroom Block Area

Blocks are selected in the Playroom Area by clicking on them once with the Hand Cursor. A selected Block is highlighted or darkened. To de-select a Block or Blocks, click anywhere in the Playroom where there is no Block.

The Hand Cursor is used to play Blocks, to drag them into the Playroom, and to move selected Blocks around within the Playroom Area. To play a Block in the Playroom Area, double click on it.

Blocks can be removed from the Playroom by dragging them into the Trash Can in the Utilities Area or by selecting them and then pressing "delete." All Blocks that are selected within one voice will be moved or handled as a group.

See Tools Area for explanations on how to group / ungroup a set of Blocks to make a Super Block , and on the use of the different cursors.

NOTE: If the contents of a Block are changed by editing, changes will be made in the Block in the Playroom Area as well as in the original Block in the Blocks Area.

Playroom Voice Controls

To the left of each voice in the Playroom are the tools for manipulating that voice.

The Instrument menu is represented by the violin symbol. Clicking on it and holding down the mouse button will bring up a list of the names of the instruments that can be used to play the Blocks in this voice. The instruments are organized hierarchically-At the top level are melody instruments (Voice 1), and percussion instrument in (Voices 2-4). Each of these is organized by families.

More about Instruments.

The Repeat function is represented by a square with a number inside. The number inside the box indicates how many times all the blocks in that voice will be repeated. To enter the number of times you would like the voice to repeat, type the number in the box or click the up or down arrow to increase or decrease the present number.

The Play / Stop triangle at the left of each voice turns that voice off or on. A green triangle tells you that the voice will play, and its graphics will be displayed in the Graphics Area . To turn off a voice, click on the green triangle and it will turn gray. A gray triangle means the voice will not play, and no graphics will be displayed for that voice in the Graphics Area.

 

 

   
Impromptu 2.0 beta 1 © 2004 Jeanne Bamberger