The Bush Band

A music studio for children. Six Little Roos animals each make a sound, and your child makes a song by tapping squares on a four-beat grid. The band plays it round and round.

How it works

• The band: the whipbird's whistle, the cockatoo's squawk, the kookaburra's laugh, the bee's hum, the frog's croak and the emu's drum. Tap an animal to hear its sound.
• The grid: each animal has a row of four squares, one for each beat. Tap a square and that animal plays on that beat. Press Play and the band plays the song round and round.
• Faster or slower, louder or softer: by picture. Two dots and four dots for the speed, a small and a big speaker for the loudness, with a little meter to show where it is.
• It always sounds good. Every sound is tuned to the same five-note scale (the pentatonic scale: C, D, E, G and A), so no two sounds ever clash.
• Try a song: three little songs to start from, and to change.
• Put it in my journal: the twelve newest songs are kept on your device, under My songs and in My Roo Journal, and play back exactly as they were made.

Seeing and feeling the beat

A child who can't hear the band can still see it. The beat's number lights up (1, 2, 3, 4), the column being played is outlined, and each animal jumps as it plays. On a phone that can vibrate, Feel the beat buzzes on every beat that has a sound, a little longer for the emu's drum. With calm motion on (on your device or on Ways to play), the animals stay still and the numbers and outlines still show the beat.

Everything works by touch, by keyboard (the arrow keys move round the grid, Space or Enter turns a square on or off, and P plays or stops) and by switch.

Away from the screen

Make a band at home: a pot for the emu's drum, two spoons for the kookaburra, a whistle for the whipbird. Clap a four-beat song from the Bush Band together, then play it on the pots. Try it loud, then soft, then fast, then slow.

What it practises

• Making up music. Choosing sounds and when they play, then changing how fast and how loud, to make a song of your own.
  AC9AMU2C01 (Music, Years 1–2); EYLF 5.4 (Early Years Learning Framework V2.0)
• Loud and soft, fast and slow. Hearing the difference between loud and soft, and fast and slow, and naming it.
  AC9AMU2D01 (Music, Years 1–2); EYLF 5.4 (Early Years Learning Framework V2.0)
• Copying a rhythm. Hearing long and short sounds, and playing them back in the same order.
  AC9AMU2D01 (Music, Years 1–2); AC9MFM01 (Mathematics, Foundation); EYLF 5.4 (Early Years Learning Framework V2.0)

What it costs, and what we collect

Nothing, and nothing. The sounds are made in the page itself, and songs are kept on your own device and never sent anywhere.