Burrow Band

What your child learns

• Steady beat and echoing. Clover plays a short rhythm and your child taps it back on the drum, the way music teachers start rhythm work in Kindergarten and Grade 1.
• Reading rhythm notation. Quarter notes (ta), pairs of eighth notes (ti-ti), quarter rests (a quiet beat) and half notes (ta-a), one bar and then two. This matches the music standard for reading and performing simple notation (MU:Pr4.2 in the National Core Arts Standards).
• Hearing and reading pitch. First high and low sounds, then G and E (sol and mi) on the treble staff, then A, and then C, D and E (do, re, mi).
• Composing. In Make a song, kids arrange notes on a grid and see their tune written as real notes on a staff (MU:Cr2: organizing and writing down musical ideas).

How to play

The first time, a quick tap check has your child tap along with Clover's drum. Every phone, tablet and computer has a small sound delay, and this lines the taps up with the music so a right tap always counts.

There are five kinds of rounds:

• Echo. Listen to Clover, wait for the count of 1 2 3 4, then tap the rhythm back. Afterwards the notes appear so your child sees what the rhythm looks like.
• Read. Read the notes, press Start, and tap them after the count-in while a soft beat ticks and a line moves along the music.
• Which one? The rabbits play a rhythm and your child picks the matching card of notes.
• High and low. Play back high and low sounds on two big pads, by ear or by reading them.
• Bells. Read notes on the staff and play them on colored bells. Then the whole band plays the tune back.

Each gig has six stars. A right round earns a star. A miss never takes a star away: the game shows what happened (green dots for notes that landed, orange circles for missed ones, blue marks for each tap), plays how it goes, and your child tries the same rhythm again.

Ten gigs and how it adapts

The gigs build in the order music classes use: hear it, see it, read it, create with it. Ta Taps, Ti-ti Hops, Read the Notes, Quiet Rests, High and Low, Long Notes, Sol and Mi, Two Bar Tunes, Do Re Mi and The Big Show. After all ten, an Encore Mix keeps everything in practice.

Two clean rounds in a row make the music a little harder (more notes, two bars, a slightly faster beat and fewer helpers like the ta and ti-ti words under the notes). A miss makes it easier again, and the rhythm your child missed comes back a few rounds later. The game also keeps track of each kind of note and brings the shaky ones up more often.

Timing is kind for small hands. Younger players get a wider window around each note and a slower beat, and one extra tap is forgiven at ages 4 to 6. Grown-ups can choose a slower speed and whether helpers show.

The band and My stage

Each gig recruits a new musician who joins the stage for good: Barnaby the badger on drums, Mossy the mole on piano, Hazel the hedgehog on flute, Tumble the toad on double bass, Pipkin the mouse on fiddle, Velvet the bat on trumpet, Fennel the fox on guitar, Jet the beetle on shakers, Olive the owl on cello and the Flickers, a trio of fireflies on glockenspiel.

In Make a song, every recruited musician plays along. The band finds chords to fit the tune, the badger keeps the beat and the toad plays the bass line, so even a first song sounds like music. The notes use a five-note scale, so nothing sounds wrong. Kids can tap musicians to let them rest, save songs to My stage and play them for the family any time.

Tips for grown-ups

• Clap and say rhythms together: ta for a quarter note, ti-ti for two eighth notes and a quiet sh with open hands for a rest.
• Sing sol and mi (the two notes of a playground chant) and move your hand up and down with the notes.
• Ask your child to play you a song from My stage and point to the high and low notes.
• Press and hold For grown-ups on the title screen to see which notes your child has practiced and how solid each one is, and to change the age, speed and helpers.

Privacy and safety

Burrow Band has no ads, no accounts, no leaderboards and no purchases, and it doesn't collect anything about your child. All music is made by the game itself, and progress and songs are saved only in the browser on your device. It plays in the browser on a phone, tablet or computer.

Questions