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Have you ever toyed with the idea that inside you lies a dormant Mozart, Gershwin or McCartney? Well, how here's your chance to see if they do.

The program comes in a standard cassette casing with a colourful cover. Inside the cover are lengthy instructions on how to LOAD and RUN the program. It takes a little while to get to grips with it, and you need to read the instructions carefully in conjunction with the sound section in the BBC user manual.

The aim of the program is to use the menu-driven system to shape the various envelopes to produce the type of sounds you want.

The composition created can then be played back all at once, or as sections, with the facility to play back previous renditions. And if you like, you can save your masterpiece on disk or cassette.

With my fingers itching to create some wonderful sounds, I typed yes in response to the question displayed in the middle of the screen asking if 600 notes was sufficient.

Four options appeared at the top of the screen in a lilac hue - D(isplay), E(dit), P(lay), L(oad) and S(ave).

To program the envelope I selected the E(dit) function by typing E(RTN). Immediately the screen was filled with another menu - E(nvelope), C(hannel), A(ll) and S(ection).

The sound parameters are changed by typing in the number of parameters you want to alter, e.g. 1 followed by RTN alters pitch.

Eventually, I programmed and named five envelopers, namely - guitar, bass, piano, drum and flute.

I entered some notes in the sound channel and from the main menu opted for my piece to be played. Then, fingers crossed, I pressed RTN and out spilled a cheerful performance of "I am Sailing".

BBC Music Synthesiser takes a little while to get used to. There are a lot of options provided to create versatile sound effects, but the emphasis is on experimentation to get the required sound.

Good use is made of the excellent sound capabilities of the BBC, and overall it's a good program which should provide endless hours of entertainment.