Music Ace

There are several good music programs on the market. Most of them teach abstract music skills like Julliard Music Adventure, or keyboard skills alone. This new program from Harmonic Vision teaches the basics of music theory and notation. Your child will learn and become familiar with the keyboard as he progresses, but the program is not really a keyboard program as such.

Music Ace is useful for those beginning their study of music, especially piano, but any instrument will do. Your child will work through 24 different lessons with several sections in each lesson. Lessons cover the basics of notes, key signature, pitch, timbre, etc. There does not seem to be a lot of time spent on note value and a second, more advanced program would be welcome. Both treble and bass clef are taught in this program.

Your maestro leads you cheerfully through each multimedia lesson. The steps are small and anyone with the least degree of musical interest will be able to succeed. The skills taught are ones which would be valuable to any child even if they never touched an instrument. At some point everyone is presented with a piece of music and at least asked to sing along. The skills learned will come in handy at some point even if your child does not pursue instrumental training.

At any time your child can leave the lesson and play a musical game which relates to the skills he has been taught. These are really low-stress drills and quizzes more than 'games.' A Doodle Pad area allows your child to play with the notes on a more intimate level. Here he can move notes around the staff, change sounds, timing and rhythms to create a masterpiece all his own. More advanced students will find this area fun even if they are beyond the lessons in the program. It is a lot of fun to watch something you have created come to life. Although not value is not really covered well, the notes are of various sizes so that your child will begin to get the message. The notes are cute animated smiley faces which can be picked up and moved around at will.

Harmonic Vision maintains a quality web site on the Internet which allows you as a parent to research composers with your child, download sheet music, access lesson plans and much more. There are also great links to other music related sites. This site can be found at http://www.harmonicvision.com If you are looking to speed up the process of learning an instrument, or simply want your child to become familiar with note-reading, this is a wonderful program! I can recommend it highly as a quality introduction to note reading.

Grading:

Educational value- 5
Entertainment value- 4
Use of medium- 31/2
Age- 6+

Harmonic Vision at (800)644-4994.