Written by Katrina Proctor, Content Manager at Midnight Music
When it comes to teaching composition, it’s essential to have the right tools at your disposal. One such tool that has gained popularity in recent years is Incredibox. This interactive music-making app and website provide a platform for students to explore their creativity while learning the fundamentals of music composition. Recently, Incredibox for Schools has been created, which gives teachers a dedicated, ad-free space for their students to create, but is it the right resource for your music classroom? We’ll delve into its features to help you decide.
What Is Incredibox?
Incredibox is an interactive drag-and-drop tool that allows students to make incredibly intricate-sounding beats and melodies. It consists of seven men/performers in a row with different colored accessories below them. Dragging and dropping an accessory onto a performer will give that performer a unique outfit which then gives that performer a unique ostinato, rhythm, or beat that loops continuously.
The design itself and the sounds created are very modern and appealing to students in Elementary through High School and you, as the teacher, can use it to teach simple to more advanced compositional skills.
What Can You Teach Using Incredibox?
There are so many things that teachers can teach using Incredibox! The tool itself is extremely intuitive and easy to learn for students of any age. Teachers can use it to teach beatboxing,rhythmic composition, ABA form, beat drops, backing tracks, layering, solo/tutti concepts, and so much more! We’ll discuss more lesson ideas below.
Free Web Version
Incredibox is also available for free in their web version (4 included sound machines). Additional sound machines are a paid subscription (currently a total of 8 available with a paid subscription). The free web version is ad-supported so students will see an advertisement before their sound machine loads.
In the free web version, students can use one of the four included sound machines to record a piece. They can then share a link to the project where it can be played on another device. Students cannot download their compositions as an mp3 when using the free version.
*Note: Incredibox is also available as a paid app in the iPad app store.
Incredibox for Schools - Paid School Version
Although Incredibox is available for free with the online web version through their website, they also recently released Incredibox for Schools which gives you, the teacher, a dedicated and protected online space to teach.
Incredibox for Schools Privacy Policy & Data Usage
Incredibox collects very little information about students. However, if your district does not allow student names to be shared, you can easily use student initials, student numbers, or other markers.
Incredibox for Schools Cost Breakdown
Incredibox for Schools is a paid upgrade that gives you and your students a private space to record and share music with one another. Before we look closer at what’s included in Incredibox for Schools, let’s first look at pricing.
Incredibox for Schools is priced per student. It decreases in price with more students and longer-term membership. For example, 25 students with a $12 1-month membership = $0.48/student/month. 600 students on a $1728 12-month annual membership = $0.24/student/month.
You can refer to the pricing grid below (subject to change).
Incredibox for Schools - 30 Day Free Trial
The best way to test out Incredibox for Schools is to sign up for a 30-day free trial. With that free trial, you can receive access to 10 student test accounts for you to practice with, test out what students see, how to manage your submitted work, and more!
To sign up for a free trial, just click any of the ‘Free Trial’ buttons on the homepage.
Incredibox for Schools - How to Invite Students
Once you sign up for a free trial or a paid account, students will be invited with unique codes that will give them access to their student account. You will simply enter student names (or student first names and initials) and an automatically-created card will be created for you to hand out.
Here is a sample student card with their login username and password. You, as the teacher, can either email these to students or pass them out in class.
Additionally, you also can download a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (.csv file) of all of your students’ passwords to view at once.
Students can manually change their passwords when they log into their account or you as the teacher can edit them at any time from your account.
Incredibox for Schools - The Sound Machines
As of this writing, there are nine sound machines available inside of the Incredibox for Schools platform. With a free trial, you will have access to the first four machines, but a paid subscription unlocks all sound machines for students.
They have shirts!
One of the most requested updates to Incredibox was to make it more school-friendly, especially for younger students or those in more modest communities. In the public free version of Incredibox, the singers do not wear shirts until you add an accessory to them:
The public, web-version view:
In the educational version, all of the performers wear shirts:
If you are someone who teaches in a more modest community or your students are younger, you may find the educational version to be more appropriate for your classroom and less distracting to students.
Mixlist
When students log in, they will see two options, ‘Incredibox’ and ‘Mixlist.’ The Incredibox screen takes them to all of the available music machines, but the Mixlist screen is where they can see all of their recorded songs and the songs of their classmates.
Note: Incredibox for Schools does not allow you to sort student submissions into folders, however, you can view individual student submissions by date. As the teacher, it will be important that students name their songs with something like “(Assignment Title) – FINAL” so that the teacher knows which song the student wants to be graded.
Here is what the Mixlist screen looks like from the student view:
In the students’ ‘My Mixes’ screen, students can view their recorded mixes and delete them or edit the composition’s name. However, it is important that students know that they cannot edit a past mix as of this writing.
10 Project Ideas for Incredibox
- Record a song using only non-melodic sounds (no singers or harmonies, only percussion)
- Record a song with two solos
- Add in sounds 1 at a time
- Create a song in A-B-A, where you change players’s outfits midway through and then replace them at the end.
- Create a composition using only 1/2/3 colors.
- Make the creepiest/happiest/most chill composition you can.
- Create two very different compositions using the same Incredibox
- Contrast a percussion-only section with a vocal-only section.
- Watch all of the cut scenes, and describe the story.
- Note: There are optional bonus “cut-scenes” in the mixers. When students add the secret array of outfits to players, the circle will fill up and will notify that a bonus scene is available. Students can click on it when it turns green to view the scene.
10. Write your own story with two scenes and two recordings. What happens in those scenes and how do your recordings depict the story?
Is Incredibox for Schools right for you?
YES if…
- You have additional funds and have a solid plan for how you want to use Incredibox to teach composition – much cheaper to use shorter term than all year.
- You want the ability to keep the players modest & G-rated. Shirtless singers in the player may be a drawback, especially for younger students.
- You want the ability to be able to see all of your student compositions at once for easier grading.
- You want students to have the ability to view their peers’ compositions quickly and easily.
- You want to be able to have students access Incredibox without ads.
- You want students to have access to all Incredibox players at once.
Final Thoughts
Incredibox for Schools is a very nice, well-thought-out system that makes composition and basic mixing a fun process for teachers and students. The music machines are all very modern and appealing to students of all ages, and having the ability to track student compositions in class groupings is very helpful for easy grading and sharing.
Incredibox is something that is excellent for short-term projects, but it doesn’t have advanced capabilities for older or more advanced students. Because of this, it’ll be important for teachers to have engaging lessons and challenges for older/more advanced students that jump off of Incredibox and into more advanced sound makers.
Overall, it is well worth a paid subscription to open up all sound machines for students, get rid of ads, and make it easier to view, grade, and share compositions, but it isn’t generally necessary to have an annual subscription unless it is something students will truly use all year. Several months should be more than enough for most teachers and situations. Overall, a short-term membership is very worthwhile for students, especially those who are beginning their composition journey.
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Want more resources for music tech teachers?
Hello! I’m Katie Argyle – an Australian music technology trainer and consultant with a passion for helping music teachers through my business Midnight Music.
I’m a qualified teacher but no, I don’t currently teach in a school. I help teachers through my online professional development space – the Midnight Music Community– where there are tutorial videos, courses, links and downloadable resources.
I like to focus on easy ways to incorporate technology into what you are already doing in your music curriculum through a range of creative projects. I also run live workshops and have presented at countless conferences and other music education events.
If you want simple, effective ideas for using technology in music education, I would LOVE to help you inside the Midnight Music Community.
