Making Music with Code TI-84 Plus CE Student - TI Innovator STEM Project Activity

Oct 13, 2026

Student activity guide for the TI-INNOVATOR Hub using a TI-84 Plus CE calculator to create sounds with a TI-BASIC program. Learners explore changing note durations, link musical concepts such as scales and tempo to programmable parameters, and use built-in frequencies and timing to generate tones. The document culminates in coding programs to play “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” bars and completing a final challenge to play a simple song from sheet music using loops and tables.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPresentations

FormatPDF

Pages4

Reading Time2 min

AccessFree to download

Music Concepts Explanation

Musical Scale

Beats per minute/Tempo

Quarter, half, and whole notes

Application of notes and beats per minute

Projects Challenges

Challenge 1: C1

Challenge 2: C2

Challenge 3: C3

Challenge 4: C4

Challenge 5: C5

Challenge 6: C6

Final Challenge

Making Music with Code TI-INNOVATOR™ STEM PROJECT TI-84 PLUS CE STUDENT ACTIVITY Making Music with Code You will write a TI-BASIC program on your calculator to create sounds using the built-in speaker on the TIInnovator Hub. You will also experiment with changing the length of time in which each sound plays. Once you have some experience, you will write a program to playa song. Your Challenge: Find the sheet music for a simple song and write a program to play the song on the TI-Innovator Hub. Treble clef scale with notes from C4 to G5 First notes of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” Activity Materials: • TI-84 Plus CE calculator • TI-Innovator Hub • Unit-to-unit cable 88 Key Piano Keyboard with Frequencies Frequencies (in Hertz... Hz) are listed below the white keys and above the black keys. For example, A0 is equal to 27.5 Hz while A4 is equal to 440 Hz. Notes start from A0 and go to C8 from left to right. Notice that as you move from left to right, each frequency for a note (B for example) roughly doubles. B0 is 30.50 Hz while B1 is 61.74 Hz and B2 is 123.74 Hz and so on. ©2018 Texas Instruments Incorporated [1](1 education.ti.com)[ education.ti.com](1 education.ti.com) Making Music with Code TI-INNOVATOR™ STEM PROJECT TI-84 PLUS CE STUDENT ACTIVITY Music Concepts Explanation | Musical Scale | Music is arranged with symbols on a “scale”. We use a scale since the notes are divided by “octaves”. An octave represents eight steps between the equivalent note that is at either double or half the frequency. For example, A4 is 440 hertz (Hz), while A5 is 880 Hz (twice the value of A4), while A3 is 220 Hz (half of A4) . | | --- | --- | | Beats per minute/Tempo | Have you ever noticed how some songs are slow while others are fast? Every song has its own “tempo” or speed. The speed is determined by the number of “beats per minute”. A slow song may have 50 beats per minute while a faster song may have 100 beats per minute. | | Quarter, half, and whole notes
| • Notes can be shorter or longer depending on the song. One way for a musician to write a song with notes of different durations is to use whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, and sixteenth notes.
• One whole note equals four quarter notes or two half notes. One half note is equal to two quarter notes and so on.
• For a song that has 4-4 measures, it means that each measure of the song has 4 beats. A whole note would be equal to 4 beats (hence, one measure) .
• How many half notes could fit into a 4-4 measure? If you said two, you are correct! Since each half note is equal to two beats and there are four total beats per measure, two half notes are equal to four beats.
So now you can see how a song with 100 beats per minute will have faster whole notes than a song with 50 beats per minute! Not all whole notes equal the same time duration! | | Application of notes and beats per minute | Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star is a song that has multiple notes and uses 4-4 time. Try to code this song with your calculator. | ©2018 Texas Instruments Incorporated [2](2 education.ti.com)[ education.ti.com](2 education.ti.com) Making Music with Code TI-INNOVATOR™ STEM PROJECT TI-84 PLUS CE STUDENT ACTIVITY Projects Challenges | Challenge 1 : Create a program called “C1”. Set the speaker on the Hub to play a tone of 440 Hz. Try several different tones. What is the lowest tone you can hear? What is the highest tone that you can hear? | | --- | | Challenge 2: Create a program called “C2”. Make a door bell using any key press on the calculator to ring the chime. | | Challenge 3: Write a program called “C3” that plays the Major C scale from C4 to C5 . Each note should be played for a variable length of time using a variable named D (for duration) . | | Challenge 4: Create a program called “C4”. Make a metronome that: plays 10 beats with a tone of middle C4 with a duration of a ¼ note at 100 Beats per minute. To do this you will need

FAQs

What is the main goal of the “Making Music with Code” activity?

Write TI-BASIC programs on a TI-84 Plus CE calculator to produce sounds through the TI-INNOVATOR Hub, first creating tones and then playing a song from sheet music.

How does the document explain tempo and beats per minute?

Tempo is defined as speed measured by beats per minute; faster songs have more beats per minute. The activity connects this to computing note durations and how quickly notes play.

What programming tasks are included in the challenges?

Challenges include creating programs C1–C6 to play tones, a doorbell, a major C scale with variable duration, a metronome with computed quarter-note timing, and “Twinkle” using sheet music and looping with frequency/duration lists.

Oct 13, 2026

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