Create a Virtual Band

In this project, we’re going to be going over how to create a virtual band!

Let’s get started!

Step 1: get sprites. To do this, go to the sprites section in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, and click the get sprite button. Once you do this, click the music tab. After doing this, you will see lots of musical instruments. Your screen should look something like this:

Choose any of the sprites you want! In our example, we used the drum kit, guitar, electric guitar, keyboard, saxophone, speakers, and trumpet. Arrange your sprites however you like before moving on.

Step 2: get a background.

Now that you have all your sprites, it’s important to get a background to support them. Go to the backgrounds section on your screen and click pick new backdrop. Click the music section. You should see something similar to this:

Step 3: start coding your sprites.

This is the fun part! You can now add sounds, animations, and words to all your sprites!

To add sounds, you can use blocks from the sound section and a repeat loop of your choice. Our example below is from the drum kit sprite.

Another idea is to animate your sprites. One way to do this would be to change the size of your sprites like we learned earlier. Our example is from the speaker sprite. In case you forgot, your code should look something like this:

Now that you know the basics, here are some project ideas to get you started!

• Try making it so that your sprite plays a sound when you click on it (for example, if your sprite is a singer, it might play a singing sound),
• Make a recording of yourself singing or playing an instrument, and animate your sprites to match!
• Have your sprites move around when you click on them or when the green flag is pressed.
• Create a song with different sounds on Scratch, and animate your sprites to match.
• Make a story with all of the sprites. Maybe the keyboard is telling the trumpet about its day!

Those are just some ideas to start you off, but feel free to explore other options! Leave us a comment below telling us what you changed or other ideas you had. If you have any trouble during your project, feel free to take a look at our sample band program linked below. It’s not the most melodic, so it’s your job to fix that!

Sample project link: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/421434867

For this program, our challenge to you is to create an entire song by yourself with the different instruments and instrument sounds.

Happy Coding!