Bongo Piano

[Amalia Antill]

Visitthe digital Makey Makey bongo page. This is a simple website that creates bongo sounds by pressing either the spacebar and/or the left arrow on your keyboard. Check out the sounds and see how it gets boring to play bongos on your keyboard. This is our norm, baseline, or starting point- a computer-based bongo playable by pressing the space bar or left arrow.

Now place the Makey Makey on a table. Touch the same contacts. Nothing will happen. Discuss how this is because you are no longer touching the Earth row. Your body is no longer carrying a small electrical signal from an input to the Earth row. With one finger, touch the Earth row. With another finger touch and input. Observe the relationship between your body connecting Earth and an input. You are a wire- a conductor!

Connect an alligator clip wire anywhere on the Earth row. Now tap the opposite, empty end of the alligator clip against the space or left contacts. Make sure the metal part of the alligator clip is touching, not the plastic. With each tap, you should see a green light near that input turn on and hear a bongo sound.

Connect an alligator clip wire to the space or left arrow contact. Show everyone how when you touch the metal parts of the alligator clip to the one connected to the Earth row, it makes the bongo sound. You might need to wiggle the plastic cover back to expose more of the metal end.

The demonstrator should hold the metal end of the alligator clip connected to the Earth row. Ask a volunteer to hold the metal end of the alligator clip connected to space or the left arrow. Now high-five each other You are a switch! The electrical signal is passing through both of your bodies and completing the circuit. You are the conductor (electronically and musically speaking) and the air in between both of you is the insulator.

Grab a paper clip with your alligator clip. Now you have added a conductive element to your circuit. When you touch the paper clips, the bongo plays. Switches are made out of conductors (like the paper clips) connecting and disconnecting. This is what happens inside a light switch, two metal pieces connect and disconnect.

This is how the switches on most circuit boards function. Conductive contacts lay next to each other. A conductive object is lowered on top to complete the connection. This is how keyboard keys, remote controls, and gamepad buttons work. The conductive object being lowered with each press is usually a flexible rubber membrane. A button pushes the rubber membrane down and this is what triggers the contact.

Now tape a paper clip to the bottom of any object. Use two pieces of tape and just cover the paper clip at the tips so that as much of the paper clip as possible is not covered with tape. Place the object on top of the stretched paper clips so the taped paper clip touches both of the stretched out paper clips and completes the circuit. Many insulators can be used to trigger a Makey Makey switch if you add a conductive element, like a paper clip or aluminum foil, to them.

Remove both paper clips from the cardboard. Open one paper clip so it makes a V shape. Insert the smaller loop into the corrugation on your cardboard. The larger loop should not rest above the cardboard at an angle. Slide another paperclip on the cardboard so it is under the V shaped one. Connect an alligator clip to each paper clip. One should connect to space or the left arrow on your Makey Makey. The other should connect to the Earth row.

A Makey Makey is a bridge between the digital and physical worlds that allows anyone to become an inventor. Today, we challenge you to invent a piano with your friends! One friend will be EARTH also known as the piano player and the other four friends will be piano notes.

You will hold EARTH to be the piano player, then have each friend hold an alligator clip associated with a piano key. Have them hold out their hands and when you tap their hand, the piano notes will play!

Noche In Havana is the penultimate composition by Ralke that is featured on Bongo Madness, and it may well be my favorite out of the three due to the colorful piano chords that burst like bubbles over a very soothing flute melody and an distant double bass line that goes slowly up and down. Overall, it is a terrific composition that aims at the softer side of Latin music. A terrific composition and one of the most underrated unique Exotica compositions that has never been picked up by other Exotica bands.

Afro-Bop is the final Ralke piece with a strong focus on the whole quintet, as everyone is involved one last time in this one: paradisiac flute melodies, a lucid conga groove, jazzy bass lines and reduced piano backings make this a very vivid, lively song that is given a counterpoint with the hyper-eclectic Mgombo, the second percussive track, but this time it consists of a freely flowing improvised solo by Burger. Rather than relying on song structures, Burger uses this performance as his business card and beats every drum he can find. I like Sesion Grande better due to its gentler rhythm and observable structure, but Mgombo is a feast for Exotica fans who are craving for percussion-only songs.

and using linux Swami created the soundfont(be nice its my first try at this and I know I have it wrong) attached zip.

It contains 9 sounds for each tom which I believe I have mapped out to the keyboard notes.

Unfortunately im not sure how to stop it resampling the pitch. for eg its recorded at say C4 pitch but I want to map it to C3 key without changing its pitch. Anyway thats a side issue.

What I can't quite work out is how to then create an instrument that pops up in the MS list so I can use it.

I can see my soundfont Bongos9 in the mixer view and replaced the default with mine and can using the piano keyboard trigger the expected bongo sounds...

But if I change in swami the instrument to percussion MS does not list the soundfont any longer.

A bit of an update. I think I worked out how to map the pitch in the soundofnt

In swami:

look at the sample and read the peak freq in the FFT. eg openhigh bongo was G5.

Make sure the Root note/properties match this.

Now when you load the sample into the instrument folder you assign the root note here to be where you want it on the keyboard for eg note 60 and limit the "red bar" to just that one note.

Repeat for the other sounds. Add instrument to melodic presets.Save file.

In Musescore:

Using Mixer replace bongos with bongos9 soundfont.

I created a drum style by editing drumset Bongos, editing and adding the note maps for the various sounds matching the Swami instrument and saving as Bongos9.

When you want to use the new bongos be sure to edit drumset and load bongos9.

I have some tweaking todo but basically it works.

So Bongos-9.sf2 lives in Musecore4/Soundfonts

bongos9.drm lives in Musecore4/Styles

Pretty sure you've got it right. The drum palette is....interesting to work with. I was going down the same path as you late last night. I had to stop and go to bed, But as near as I can tell, yes you have to edit the palette to match your new font.

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This album release is featuring award-winning recording artists. Love Is Volume Two is available as digital download and physical album (CD). Worldwide Distributed including in the hottest music market today ASIA; as digital download and streaming.

1. Johnny Douglas - Leave the Light On 3:02 - The first thing the listener notices is the piano. Johnny can play! I am a sucker for piano rock. Elton John and Bruce Hornsby and, lest I forget, the iconic Steve Winwood are among my favorite musicians. This is not hyperbole when I say that Johnny can go toe to toe with any of those artists. The man can rock hard when he wants to or, as he does in this song he can play and sing so beautifully the Wicked Witch of the West would make peace with the Munchkins.

3. Studeo - I'm Falling For You 4:11 - This is another Bongo Boy band that I really like. The intro is dominated by a very emotional, sad guitar. When her vocals come in the song hits a new level as the band locks in. That tremendous voice and the excellent guitar work would bring out the emotion in even the most hard-core biker. The bottom line is that this is a very good song. Love songs, as Bongo Boy defines them are songs first and about love second. This stuff is much better than that muzak made up of Silly Love Songs (cough cough Paul McCart-ney cough cough). With this track, Studeo remains one of my favorite Bongo Boy artists.

4. Gar Francis - Man On The Moon 2:57 - Gar is the master. I have not heard anything by Gar that I have not liked. I can only think of a few other artists in that league, one being the genius Smokey Robinson. Gar starts with a very melodic intro before his trademark sensitive, yet somehow menacing vocals come in. The thing is, once you get past the intimidation factor, you realize Gar is singing a very sensitive song in which he expresses his deepest feelings. I get the same feeling when I hear Alice Cooper singing Only Women Bleed. Once you get past the make-up, the snake, and the decapitation you realize that Alice is a very sensitive, forward thinking guy.

13. Frank Piombo - Our Love feat. Angelo Uccello & Angela Marcone 4:13 - This is interest-ing. The beginning piano run made me think this was going to be swinging jazz track, but then the vocals came in and I can hear this song should be a staple on any mellow-rock station. There is a definite 1970s vibe going on here. The horn work is particularly nice. All in all, this is a very pretty song.

So what is the bottom line? Bongo Boy has once again made clear that a love song is a song first and about love second. The lyrics on all of these songs are sensitive and even heart touch-ing, but it is the music that stands out in my mind. The music is good, very good. This album would make a fine addition to any collection.

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