A Note Block being triggered and playing a note.
Crafting
Note Blocks can be crafted by placing 8 planks in a square with redstone at the center.
Music
Note blocks play a note when hit or when powered by redstone. Redstone current only causes the note to play once, even if it is a continuous current. A note block must have at least one block of air above it to play a sound. Notes can be heard up to 48 blocks away.
A simple tutorial on how to use note blocks can be found here: [2]
Each time a note block plays a note, a note particle will fly out of the top, with the color depending on the pitch (but not the instrument).
Right clicking increases the note pitch up a half step, with a total of two full octaves being available to play. The range of notes span from F#3 to F#5. After reaching the highest note, right clicking again resets it back to F#3, as does breaking the block and picking it back up. The exact pitch to click assignment is shown below. [1]
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The instrument played depends on the block underneath the note block:
| Block Type | Instrument |
| Wood based blocks | Double Bass |
| Sand / Gravel / Soulsand | Snare Drum |
| Glass / Glowstone | Clicks / Sticks |
| Stone / Cobblestone / Obsidian / Netherrack / Bricks / Moss Stone | Bass Drum |
| All Other Blocks | Harp |
A video showing the different sounds can be seen here: [3]
Wiring
A pair of note blocks wired to a 5-clock redstone circuit to play alternately.
In order to wire Note Blocks to play a note when receiving power, power must be applied to the side of the Note Block using Redstone Dust. Simply placing a switch or pressure plate on an adjacent block or providing power to the underneath of the Note Block will not work - Redstone Dust must be used to provide power to the side of the block in order to make it produce one note when it is turned on.
Very basic wiring tutorial: [4]
Uses
Songs can be composed using multiple Note Blocks in harmony.
An example of a simple melody played by hand: [5]
Here are two videos showing that it is possible to play a song with a single click: [6] and [7]
Other Information
- Note Blocks can only play when there is at least a block of air above them.
- Note Blocks use the same texture as jukeboxes but the top texture is the same as the side textures.
References
History
Note Blocks were released on 13 January 2011 for the Beta release 1.2.