Morton Subotnick\'s Hearing Music

Details: Category: Computer; By ccgr; 01.Jun; Hits: 7053

System Requirements Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP, Mac OS 8, 9 or X 12MB Hard drive space 8MB RAM Sound card and speakers

This title is great for helping people of all ages appreciate music. Although the interface is easy enough for a child to use, the lessons inside will challenge any adult. The end result will help users listen to and appreciate music at a higher level.

What will I learn?

This game is broken down into four learning game modes, with the reading music mode having both a beginner and an advanced mode, totaling five modes. There are four difficulty levels for each mode. There are fifteen bars to fill in before you complete each level. Most answers are only worth 1 bar, but the ordering answers are worth 2-3 bars each.

Comparing, Same or Different:

In this mode you hear two musical phrases and you must decide if they are the same or different. The high levels make you specify how they are different. (Higher, lower, faster, slower, backwards, upside down, or the same) The higher levels are quite challenging; consider the first couple levels as warm ups.

Ordering:

This mode is like a musical puzzle. You?ll hear a musical tune and then it?s up to you to put the pieces in the proper order to duplicate it. As the levels advance, the tunes get more complex.

Matching:

In this game you?ll hear a musical phrase and depending on the level you must find the same or similar tune from three or more choices. The higher the level the trickier they are to distinguish, so pay attention!

Reading:

How good are you at reading music? In this mode you?ll hear a tune and you have to pick the sheet of music it corresponds to. Don?t worry too much as there are only two to choose from. Some are easy to distinguish, but when it gets to the flats and sharps, I have a hard time telling which is which.

About Music

There is a short ten chapter narrated book called About Music that you can listen to and watch. It briefly covers:

Why we hear
How very well we hear
How we hear
The way we speak
Where music came from
Expressing our feelings
Hearing music makes us feel things
What music is made of
Practice, practice, practice
The world of music

Graphics

The graphics and interface look like a cartoon. It?s very easy to move around and tell what each part does. Kids will enjoy the colors, look and feel. Unfortunately, if you have a high screen resolution, you will have a black border around your screen.

Sound

Sound is very important to this game. If you don?t have a sound card, or speakers/headphones, don?t get it. The music clips and examples are very pretty and have a lot of variety. The sound is very well done.

Appropriate

I find nothing offensive about this title. It?s a great and fun way to learn about music.

Final Thoughts

I would highly recommend this title to anyone wanting to train your ears to hear music better. It?s rated E for everyone and I can see adults and children learning from this game. Out of all the Morton Subotnick ?Music? titles, this one is probably the best I?ve reviewed so far.