Now that you have played Ghostbusters and Daley Thompson's Decathlon, it's about time you used your C64 to play some music: Rod Stewart, Abba, The Beatles or even Mozart and Tchaikovsky. Commodore's new Music Maker Playalong Albums let you do just that. Or just sit back and listen...

Commodore has released three Playalong albums to kick-off what promises to be an expanding series: Pop Hits, The Beatles and Popular Classics. Although they're in the 'Music Maker' series, you need to extra software to use them. Music Maker's keyboard overlay would be a bonus, but you can get by without it. Each package costs £9.99, comes with appropriate sheet music and is available on tape and disk.

All three albums work in the same way - they just play different tunes. So let's look at the facilities offered. There's two ways to use these programs: you play along with them in a variety of ways by pressing the C64's keys, or you just sit back and let the tunes play themselves.

Each program is menu driven and uses the function keys to select options. It couldn't be simpler. The main menu lists twelve tunes. When you've chosen one, the secondary menu lists three playing options: Single Key play, Rehearsal mode and Performance mode.

Whichever you choose, a musical keyboard is depicted on the screen, with a 'hand' pointing to the notes you must play. The accompaniment takes care of itself - you can just play in the melody line.

In Single Key play, you control the timing and rhythm. Pressing any key plays a note, together with its backing. So you can plod along, getting the feel of the music.

In Rehearsal mode, you must press the correct keys. Again the accompaniment waits for you. But you must get the timing right this time; press a key too quickly and the program ignores it.

Now you've learnt the melody, you move up to Performance mode. Here, the accompaniment plays itself and you provide the complete melody line. A metronome counts you in; from there it's up to you to keep time and play the right notes.

A few more points: each program lets you increase and decrease tempo, and change the pitch so you can tune the computer to other musical instruments. If you haven't get a Music Maker keyboard, the manual tells you which of the top two rows of keys on the C64 produce notes. It takes a little getting used to, though. For true professionals, the Midi interface lets you connect a standard Midi keyboard.

A music score book accompanies each package, containing the melody lines for the tunes. Notes are large and bold, each one identified with its letter. Above the staff, you get chord boxes for the accompaniment - all nicely laid out for the beginner.

If playing along is too much like hard work, the tunes will play themselves, using the Autoplay facility. LP mode plays all twelve tunes consecutively, whilst Concert or Jukebox mode plays them in any order you select.

To brighten up the screen while they're playing, you get a choice of two graphic displays: a moving bar chart showing the three voices, and a set of dancing notes. You can also connect the C64 to your hi-fi amplifier using the audio/video socket and a 5-pin DIN lead - there's a remarkable improvement in sound. So let's look at each package individually.

You'll be disappointed if you're expecting to hear all your recent Chart favourites in this lot. The choice is strictly middle of the road and pretty unadventurous - a bit like those beginners' music books you bought when you started playing your Woolworths' organ.

Sixties and Seventies fans get a frenetic version of Telstar, Free's All Right Now (nice drum beat and bass line) and, the hardy perennial, House Of The Rising Sun. Apparently folk fans never tire of hearing Streets Of London, so there's a tired helping of that, and a tastefully gone Morning Has Broken.

More up to date, you get Rod Stewart's Sailing (good to singalong with), and two Abba numbers: Thank You For The Music (no thanks) and The Winner Takes It All. Although the latter was impressive, the real hit on this album is The Entertainer (Theme from The Sting) - great tune, brilliant arrangement. Worst offender? Barry Manilow's I Write The Song - we wish he hadn't.

Hardened Beatles fans have got so used to the Fab Four's ditties being 'vandalised' that another hatchet job won't bother them. At least all the tunes are recognisable: some are commendably arranged, others will just annoy the purist.

Hard Day's Night gets a reggae beat whilst And I Love Her features a calypso-style bass line. Things improve with We Can Work It Out, Get Back (nice attempt at George Harrison's country guitar) and Day Tripper (best tune on the album).

Now to the songs that get 'null points'. Sadly, they're all Paul McCartney tear-jerkers. Michelle sounds like a funeral dirge, Yesterday lacks feeling and Eleanor Rigby is played like a military march.

What lets this album down (it applies to Pop Hits too) is that melody lines are altered to simplify them; that's annoying for such well-known tunes. You can overcome that by playing it your way in Performance mode.

Secondly, the same 'sound' is generally chosen for melody lines, which makes them tedious after a while. There's no lack of invention in the backing. In fact, the variety of sounds is impressive. So why not use them up front?

Don't be put off by the title, you've probably heard all the tunes on this album, the emphasis being on Tchaikovsky and Mozart. The former gets four pieces including part of The Nutcracker suite. Unfortunately, his offerings show both the best and the worst.

Capriccio Italian (not a frothy coffee) is pacey, full of whirling cadenzas and generally a treat. That goes for Brahms' Hungarian Dance too; both sound like fairground organ music. But Romeo And Juliet fails miserably. Remember how it sounded at the movies - sob, sob.

And that's the problem: how do you make pieces designed for an orchestra sound reasonable with only three 'voices'? They've tried to do it by cramming the accompaniment with complex arrangements. Sometimes they work (Mozart's Night Music, Bizet's Toreodor Song) and sometimes they suffer by being too ambitious, like Grieg's Hall Of The Mountain King and Strauss' Emperor Waltz.

If these albums were for listening only, you'd get bored with them pretty quickly. The fact that you can play along in a variety of ways overcomes any musical criticisms. The makers have had to compromise: they've had to use well-known tunes and arrange them simply, and they've overcome the limitations on the C64's SID chip.

On the whole, the result is a pretty impressive piece of programming. As a package, these programs have educational value for the musical beginner who's impatient to produce impressive sounds straightaway. For the rest of us, they prove what a wonderful little machine the C64 really is.