I'm trying to make simple christmas lights with patterns and music

Projects Programming
1

Hey! I'm new into Arduino and i'm having some trouble with my project. What I'm basically trying to do is to have a pattern of lights along four LED lights (it's a simple proof of concept), while a buzzer plays Jingle Bells at the same time.
My problem is that I can't figure out how to write my code in order to make it simultaneous. What happens is that the lights turn on in the pattern I designed, and when the pattern is finished, the song starts playing. Here's my code:

int speakerPin = 12;
int length = 29; // the number of notes
char notes[] = "eeeeeeegcdefffffeeeeddedg"; // this is the code for the song I copied
int beats[] = { 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 4, 
1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 1 };
int tempo = 250;
void setup() {
  pinMode(13, INPUT); 
  pinMode(12, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(11, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(10, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(9, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(8, OUTPUT);
}

void line() { //this is my pattern
  digitalWrite(11, HIGH);
  delay(500);
  digitalWrite(10, HIGH);
    delay(500);
   digitalWrite(11, LOW);
    digitalWrite(9, HIGH);
    delay(500);
    digitalWrite(10, LOW);
    digitalWrite(8, HIGH);
    delay(500);
    digitalWrite(9, LOW);
    delay(500);
    digitalWrite(8, LOW);

void playTone(int tone, int duration) {
  for (long i = 0; i < duration * 1000L; i += tone * 2) {
    digitalWrite(speakerPin, HIGH);
    delayMicroseconds(tone);
    digitalWrite(speakerPin, LOW);
    delayMicroseconds(tone);
  }
}
void playNote(char note, int duration) {
  char names[] = { 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'a', 'b', 'C' };
  int tones[] = { 1915, 1700, 1519, 1432, 1275, 1136, 1014, 956 };
 
  for (int i = 0; i < 8; i++) {
    if (names[i] == note) {
      playTone(tones[i], duration);
    }
  }
}
  
void loop() {
  for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) {
    if (notes[i] == ' ') {
      delay(beats[i] * tempo); // rest
    } else {
      playNote(notes[i], beats[i] * tempo);
    }
   
   
  }
}

I don't know how to call the function "line()" in the void loop for the song and the light pattern be simultaneous, and after a few tries I deleted my attempts at doing it.

Any help is useful! Thank you very much!

2

Didn't get what you are trying to do. If you want the lights to blink according to the rhythm of the song then you need to use some sound sensor. Please explain a little more.

3

As long as you use delay(...) or delayMicroseconds(...) you are going to continue to have problems. There is a locked topic at the top of this forum
Using millis() for timing. A beginners guide
that will teach you to use millis() as well as micros(). You may have other problems but until you learn to NOT use delay(...), all else is hopeless. Almost nothing happens while your Arduino executes delay(...).

By the way, loop() is a function that happens to return nothing (also known as void). loop() is NOT a void !

4

Ok, you aren't far away from a working solution. You have two arrays for the song: one gives the notes to play and the other the duration for each note.

Now you just need to add another array with the pattern of lights to display for each note. Since it seems like you only have 4 lights, it might be easier to make one array per light. That array would look a lot like the notes[] array but you would have to make up your own code to write down "on" and "off" with just a single letter. '1' and '0' are popular choices.

Then when each note is played, set the lights to that pattern for the note.