Playing Music

Details: Category: Computer; By ccgr; 15.Oct; Hits: 8345

System Requirements 233MHz/400MHz for Mac 128MB RAM CD-ROM Sound card and speakers Playing Music will teach you how to read and interpret musical expressions and symbols. There are over twenty musical scores that you can alter by changing the tempo, intensity, and overall moods. Once you are satisfied with your creation, you can copyright it and see it performed on stage or play it yourself! There are nine videos to watch of the professional pianist Frederic Chiu performing masterpieces, talking about musical expression, and reminiscing a little bit about his childhood.

Learning Games

There are a few learning games to teach you about musical expression. Each game has three levels of difficulty containing ten questions each.

Listen! In this game you’ll hear a music sample and you must choose the same sample again from the choices.
Look! Choose the appropriate visual representation or pattern that best represents the piece you hear.
Look and Listen! Listen to a musical performance and choose the appropriate musical notation.
Make it So! Listen to the music and look at the score. You have to choose what musical expression marks are missing.
What’s it mean? This is a teaching tool that provides a fun way to learn the concepts of musical expression with multiple-choice questions. (It’s easy to detect the wrong answer, as they are blatantly silly.)

What kind of music can I play?

You’ll be able to alter pieces from Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Clementi, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, and Weber.

Graphics

The graphics in this game are cartoon like but they do the job well. There’s a video with Frederick describing musical expression as a garden and the animation was really nice in that. The videos are a nice touch but they are low-res and pixilated at high resolutions.

Sound

The music in this game is great; it’s obvious Frederic knows what he’s doing. All the musical scores are well done and you can totally alter how they sound on the fly. The voice acting however is another story. It’s pretty much a one-woman show (the same woman from Pet Vet 3D I believe!) who does a nice ladies voice but an annoying robot or scruffy alligator voice.

Stability

I had no problems running this game; it ran great with no crashes. It even alt-tabs nicely. Then again my machine exceeds the minimum requirements substantially.

Controls

You’ll mostly be using your mouse to play. Occasionally you’ll need to use your keyboard. The interface is very easy to use.

Appropriateness

This game is rated E for everyone and it’s suitable for people of all ages who want to learn more about music.

Final thoughts

This is another great Morton Subotnick title teaching people to appreciate and enjoy music. I learned a lot by playing it. I would recommend this for any music lover. Just don’t expect good voice acting.