Playing melodies with tone() in Arduino - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Playing melodies with tone()

📖 Scenario: You have a small buzzer connected to your Arduino. You want to play a simple melody by making the buzzer beep at different notes.

🎯 Goal: Build a program that plays a short melody using the tone() function on a buzzer connected to pin 8.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create an array called notes with the frequencies of the melody notes

Create an array called durations with the length of each note in milliseconds

Use a for loop with variable i to play each note using tone()

Use noTone() to stop the buzzer between notes

Print "Melody finished!" after playing all notes

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Playing melodies with a buzzer is common in alarms, toys, and simple music projects.

💼 Career

Understanding how to control hardware like buzzers with code is useful for embedded systems and electronics jobs.

1

Set up the melody notes

Create an integer array called notes with these exact frequencies: 262, 294, 330, 349, 392.

Arduino

# Create the notes array with the given frequencies
// Your code here

Hint

Use int notes[] = { ... }; to create the array with the exact frequencies.

2

Set up the note durations

Create an integer array called durations with these exact values: 500, 500, 500, 500, 500.

Arduino

int notes[] = {262, 294, 330, 349, 392};
// Create the durations array with the given values
// Your code here

Hint

Use int durations[] = { ... }; to create the array with the exact durations.

3

Play the melody using tone()

Write a for loop with variable i from 0 to 4 to play each note on pin 8 using tone(8, notes[i], durations[i]). After each note, add a delay of durations[i] plus 50 milliseconds. Then call noTone(8) to stop the buzzer.

Arduino

int notes[] = {262, 294, 330, 349, 392};
int durations[] = {500, 500, 500, 500, 500};

// Play each note using a for loop
// Your code here

Hint

Use a for loop from 0 to 4. Inside, call tone(8, notes[i], durations[i]), then delay(durations[i] + 50), then noTone(8).

4

Print a message after the melody

Add a Serial.begin(9600) in setup() before the loop. After the for loop, add Serial.println("Melody finished!") to print the message.

Arduino

int notes[] = {262, 294, 330, 349, 392};
int durations[] = {500, 500, 500, 500, 500};

void setup() {
  // Start serial communication
  // Your code here

  for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
    tone(8, notes[i], durations[i]);
    delay(durations[i] + 50);
    noTone(8);
  }

  // Print the message
  // Your code here
}

void loop() {
  // no code needed here
}

Hint

Call Serial.begin(9600) at the start of setup(). After the loop, call Serial.println("Melody finished!").