Musical Micros

"Micro Maestro means the end of solitary music practice", proclaims Mupados's publicity blurb. Well, I wouldn't go that far, but it does offer young musicians a way of practising while also making use of their micros.

The aim of the program is to get children to play tunes to accompaniments recorded on an audio cassette supplied with the package.

For years musicians have been able to buy pre-recorded backing tapes for practising solos in concert style without having to hire a symphony orchestra, but as far as I know only Mupados have combined this idea with computer-aided learning.

The melody lines of six tunes, including the themes from Chariots of Fire and Superman, are displayed on screen in standard notation a few bars at a time, to be practised with or without the notes being sounded by the micro's internal speaker.

Sections can be repeated, the tempo can be changed to suit different levels of skill, and a bouncing ball can be made to skip lightly across the score indicatingthe note to be played.

There is also a visual pulse counter to show the relationship between note groupings and the regular beats of a bar.

All this is done competently, with good graphics and an effective method of providing continuity in reading the score.

The pack is supplied in separate configurations for concert pitch instruments, transposing instruments and keyboards. The concert pitch version gives a choice of treble, bass and alto clefs, and the transposing version can be used for instruments pitched in B flat, E flat and F. The keyboard version displays suggested fingerings as the notes are sounded.

Despite all these features, the package is rather limited in its potential, mostly because you're stuck with the six tunes supplied. If music teachers could enter their own melodies and record an accompaniment the program would stand a better chance in schools.

Furthermore, it has been designed to run on both the BBC Micro and the Electron, so only one sound channel is used. This means that in the keyboard version the player is confined to one right-hand line - not exactly what a keyboard was designed for!

The program comes on cassette only, and each pack costs £14.99. Given its limitations, this is a little high in my view, despite the original approach and the high quality of the backing tracks.

Gabriel Jacobs