An island of fun on the Isle of Tune

I am not sure exactly which curriculum objectives The Isle on Tune addresses, but I am sure it is fun finding out.

Isle of Tune is a musical sequencing and composition app that is a delight to use ($A2.99). I have seen a 5 year old compose with it and it will challenge the skill of a musical adult. As the screen shot shows, there is a graphic layout that presents the musical score as a road. The music comes from roadside objects, triggered by the cars passing by. It is programming, really, requiring lots of logic and concentration. And there is immediate delightful feedback.
Best to see what the process looks like in this frenetic video.


I would love to see what a teacher with musical knowledge could do with this app with students anywhere from Year 3 to 12. While a 5 year old can create on this, the video shows that in order to get a satisfying piece of music, you have to know about rhythm, complementary notes and all sorts of music knowledge that I don't have. But of course you could work out a lot of this by trial and error on the Isle of Tunes.

The fun aspect of apps like this is a non-trivial problem. Obviously students of all ages (and grown ups) would first of all want to just play around and see what funny sequences can be composed. There is a real danger that some students at least would have difficulty getting beyond a 'fooling around' use of the app. One wouldn't want to remove this element, but the teacher would want students to move on to learning how to manage rhythm and repetition and so on to produce truly engaging music. Obviously an anti-fun teacher would be challenged by this sort of software.