Note Block Studio: A Music Creation Application for Minecraft Note Block Songs

• Bernardo Costa UFSJ
• Flávio Luiz Schiavoni UFSJ

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/sbcm.2025.14396

Resumo

Note Block Studio (NBS) is an open-source music creation application for desktop computers. It aims to help anyone easily create music for the critically acclaimed video game Minecraft, using blocks that emit musical notes. NBS features an intuitive grid workspace, where a user can arrange musical notes to create songs. These songs can then be exported to a musical circuit, allowing them to be played in-game. Since its first release in 2011, NBS has gathered a vibrant community with tens of thousands of players and musicians. Many software tools and plugins have been developed to enhance the app’s native capabilities, deeply enriching the project’s ecosystem. Moreover, advanced compositional techniques have been created to overcome the limitations of note blocks. These advancements have paved the way for hundreds of musical works, visualizations, and even collaborative pieces to emerge around the app, which have reached millions of players through online social platforms. In this paper, we provide an in-depth analysis of NBS and its features, showcase its community, and present some of the modern initiatives powered by the app. We also explore how its appeal has helped it secure a solid position within Minecraft’s musical community. Finally, we investigate its limitations and potential research paths. Ultimately, our goal is to introduce NBS to the academic community, building a strong contextual foundation to support further development of its ecosystem.

Referências

Mojang AB. Minecraft Annual 2026. Minecraft Series. Farshore, 2025.

Keith Stuart and Keza MacDonald. The 50 best video games of the 21st century. The Guardian, Sep 2019.

Charlie Hall. Why Minecraft is the most important game of the decade. Polygon, 11 2019.

Duncan Geere. Block of the Week: Note Block, 6 2018.

OpenNBS. 15 years of note block music: The history of Note Block Studio, 2024. Smithed Summit ‘24.

Andrew Lesser. Gamifying the Music Classroom: Digital Tools for Practical Application. Oxford University Press, 09 2024.

UN-Habitat. The Block by Block playbook: Using Minecraft as a participatory design tool in urban design and governance, 2022.

Joanna Nelius. This Minecraft library provides a platform for censored journalists. Gizmodo, Mar 2020.

Matthew Gault. ‘Minecraft’ is helping preserve the ancient language of Elfdalian. VICE, 10 2017.

Musical Box Society of Great Britain. Mechanical music, 07 2016.

Museum Speelklok. Museum Speelklok in Utretch: where machines make music, 06 2025.

Danny Lewis. This machine makes music with marbles. Smithsonian Magazine, 07 2016.

Wintergatan. Marble Machine (music instrument using 2000 marbles), 03 2016.

John Edgar Park. The SIGGRAPH 2001 Computer Animation Festival: A digital odyssey. Animation World Network, 10 2001.

A.C. Clarke. Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry Into the Limits of the Possible. Bantam science and mathematics. Harper & Row, 1962.