|
|
Program Description What The Kids Said Who Is This Program For
Why We Selected This Program Computer Requirements
|
|
Making Music is an excellent open-ended program for introducing young people who have had no formal training or exposure to the idea of composing music. It is a fun, visual, hands-on tool for creating and exploring music.
It is divided into five sections, the central one being the Making Music palette. This tool allows children to use a “musical paintbrush” to visually place notes on a canvass. The location of a note reflects its pitch, while its size represents the length of the note.
There are many tools for manipulating single notes or sections of composition, including changing scale, switching between a range of instruments, reversing music, or speeding up and slowing down a selection.The composition screen provides two drawing tools, a paint brush and a conductor's wand. You drag these over a blank screen and they work like a graph: pitches ascend toward the top and descend toward the bottom. If you hold the mouse down and drag it horizontally, the note is sustained. Playback is from left to right.
Compositions can be saved and altered later. The visual representation of notes resembles written music without the formality. Children will be able to make the (mathematical) connections between note pitch and length by how it appears on the page in relation to other notes.
The Building Blocks is the easiest way for younger children to make music. This part of the program divides common tunes (such as Mary Had a Little Lamb) into sections (or blocks) which can be played in different orders or even altered to sound different. New versions of the song can be saved and replayed. The Melody and Rhythm Maker allows you to create pieces by altering either the melody or the rhythm using fun visual tools.
The Mix and Match option presents melodies, rhythms, and instruments from around the world, and allows you to switch the rhythms or melodies, or to change the instruments.
The final option in Making Music is the Games section, which challenges children to identify melodies that are the same or different and to identify how they are different (higher or lower pitch).
|
Click Images To Enlarge
Using a paintbrush you create the music on the canvass
Building Blocks has you constructing a song
Place the birds on the wires (the treble clef) to make a song
Music games
|
|
|
This program is intended for children 5 to 12 years old who have not been given formal training in music. It is designed to allow them to explore making music the same way that young people explore painting or drawing. Because there is no reading involved, independence with the software will be quick for young and old alike. This program would also be interesting to older children who have been exposed to music, since it would allow them an opportunity to demonstrate what they already know.
Making Music is an excellent program because it takes the creative process of musical composition, which is inaccessible to most, and makes it fun and easy. The software accomplishes this by making the simple connection between music and visual art, and it turns the music making process into something you can see with shapes and colours. There is no reading required, and all the tutorials are explained through simple audio tracks. Another strength of this program is that it allows children to see and keep the products of their work. Compositions can be saved, altered, saved again, and replayed with ease. Making Music is fabulous because children are not constrained by any rules. Just as with a blank piece of paper, there are no lines to colour within, this composition software allows for virtually any type of creation. The beginner can experiment with different instruments’ sounds, different pitches, rhythms, and note lengths. More advanced users can try to recreate songs they have heard before or compose their own tunes. The possibilities are endless.
- Reviewed by Kevin Dempsey who teaches all subjects at the grade 7 & 8 level
|
Pricing and Online Ordering
(or call toll free -1-800-250-9229 )
|
 |
|
Platform: Windows Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, 12 MB Hard Drive Space, 8 MB RAM, external speakers or headphones.
Platform: Mac OS 7.5.3-9.0, Built for OS X.1 and later, 12 MB Hard Drive Space, 8 MB RAM, external speakers or headphones.
or to see other music programs
Music Ace - ages 8 & up
Piano Suite - ages 8 & up
Making Music - ages 5 -12
|
|
|
|
