Music Hath Charms

Like the author of this program, I am also a former teacher of the piano and have experienced, the frustrations of repeating the whereabouts of middle C and so on to sticky-fingered little children.

However in Reading Music Made Easy by Childsplay it is claimed that the learner can literally teach himself, or at least with the minimum of supervision.

Having waded through numerous manuals and programs which, while they display the micro's extensive musical capabilities, do very little to threaten the jobs of music teachers, I was sceptical.

To my delight, however, I found that such hefty claims were more than met by this quite excellent program.

The basic test involved is to recognise and name a succession of notes displayed on staves drawn on the screen.

Because of the range of well thought out options, even such a basically simple program caters for a wide range of needs and capabilities.

I especially liked the way all necessary instruction is displayed on screen in an easily assimilated manner.

You are initially asked what facilities and information are required. The screen is then set up accordingly and prompts are given asking you to demonstrate if the information has been absorbed.

As a beginner you may only wish to start by learning the notes of one clef, with no leger lines. While the text is in progress you are constantly reminded of the names of the notes, for which there are the usual rhymes, to aid memory.

As you become more proficient, you may feel you can do without such reminders or wish to add the leger lines.

You may even feel up to mastering another clef before continuing with the test.

Whatever your chosen level of difficulty, having achieved the target recommended by the computer you are then set a higher, yet perfectly obtainable target, and are given an analysis of your previous performance.

You may be thinking that while this sounds great for the beginner it is not much use to the more advanced musician.

A nice feature of the program, however, is the constant time display which will measure the speed of your progress.

Thus even after a flawless performance of the most difficult form of the test you are still informed you can improve by becoming faster.

The program may not be quite as valuable to the musicallyinitiated, but it will certainly aid in the speed and accuracy of sight-reading, and test the reaction time of even the most advanced musician.

There is always the incentive of trying to beat the "impossible" task of successively completing the given test within 12 seconds.

There is also the opportunity for developing pitch.

The program caters for a wide range of users. You may want to learn the treble clef, using the recorder or violin, or the bass clef, for cello or double bass. Then again, you may wish to learn both for the keyboard.

Learners of keyboard instru ments can opt to see a visual display of the keyboard, which they can "play" by moving the cursor keys left and right. This excellent addition is impressive.

If you select this option you must not only name the notes, but also "play" them on the keyboard when you are tested.

All in all, an excellent program. The amount of time and care taken in its production, as well as the knowledge and experience of the author on its subject matter, are abundantly obvious.

Karen Torevell