Download cookiebeats.com

Music Education for the iPad
www.cookiebeats.com
www.upbeetgames.com
Overview
Smash cookies to the beat while you step up your rhythm and
beatmaking/DJing skills with this innovative music game. Test your rhythm
and help deliver cookies while in full control of a drum pad cranking out
funky drum beats and grooves. Cookies will appear on the grid in time with
the music. When the cookie timer has expired it's time to tap! The better the
timing, the higher the points! Don't worry, DJ Cookie Man has special
powers to slow down time if you get lost and he guides you from simple
beats to more complex ones.
Pulling inspiration from music theory software, Music Ace, and the
Japanese music game, Jukebeat, Cookie Beats creates an engaging
interactive music education experience.
Background
In 2010 after graduating from Berklee in Boston, I won a grant to start a music
tech class and install computers, drum pads, and Reason software (Figure
app) at the Community Music Center of Boston (CMCB). Through CMCB I
was introduced to the Music Ace software they were using on their 10-yearold PCs. I thought the software was well designed but a bit archaic and it
only featured classical music. I thought "why not use popular music to teach
basic concepts since it mostly utilizes basic music theory anyway?"
There is high potential for music technology and traditional forms of music
education to be mixed and experimented with. It's not an either/or situation.
This Spring we will teach a multimedia music elective class at a middle
school and high school using Reason, and I will use my new app on 11
iPads (which the school owns). Games and technology are such an integral
part of young people's lives. Gamifying music is not difficult because music
is fun anyway. What matters is whether the player is capable of applying it
to the real world.
Features:
• 200+ high quality wav sounds
• 35 levels in Freestyle and Normal Mode.
• Beats from Hip-Hop, EDM, House, Pop, Rock, R&B, Reggaeton, Dancehall and more.
• 22 original beats by UpBeet Games and super producers:
◆Mr.Carmack (Mad Decent),
◆Daniel Riera (Producer for George Watsky)
◆More beats in every update!
• Smart tempo detection. Optional feature slows down songs when it detects you're having trouble with a level.
• Guided levels from quarter notes to complex beats.
• Freestyle mode. Choose your own tempo, practice and improvise over songs or by yourself with 23 drum kits.
• Customizable animations for the Cookies!
• GameCenter enabled. Earn 16 achievements, share high scores and compete for the best and most accurate beat
performances.
• Retina HD Graphics.
Step Sequencers and Music Theory
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Composing in the modern age almost always
includes a sequencer. The ability to easily discern
rhythms and patterns on a grid engages your
spatial and temporal perception and studies have
shown that it increases the ability to read and do
basic math.
Cookie Beats' 16 pads act as a 16-step
sequencer grid, a common tool to compose in the
digital age. The simplicity of grid based
sequencers allows the user to easily see patterns,
downbeats, upbeats, and subdivisions.
The 35 levels progress from counting quarters,
eighths, and 16th subdivisions (1-ee-and-uh), to
Pop and Hip-Hop beats and popular patterns
found in all types of music like the Clave, Tresillo
over two (three notes inside 2 quarter notes),
Four-on-the-Floor and much more.
Drum Pads and Music Technology
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Cookie Beats' interface is identical to one of the most popular modern instruments, the 16
pad (4x4) Drum Machine found on the Native Instruments Maschine and Akai MPC
and MPD series. The interface has the same dimensions of a drum pad MIDI controller so
you can apply your new skills in the real world once you've mastered the art of rhythm and
time keeping.
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Cookie Beats serves as an introduction to music technology. Inspiration for the game came
from a technique modern composers use to chop a bar of music from a sound recording
into 16 slices (16th notes).
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Explore the relationship between transposing pitches of samples and tempo.
Practice Skills and Tempo
Selection
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In Normal mode, the app will automatically slow down rhythms
you can't play after 2 tries. This feature is inspired by common
practice techniques and the Music Ace music theory software.
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In Freestyle mode, choose a tempo, rock out and improvise with
the help of the animations.
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Learn how to play with a metronome and a count-off. An
essential skill for any musician playing in a band or recording in the
studio.
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Traditional methods of practicing rhythms such as speaking
syllables out loud are integrated into the app.