Computer Times
June 2004

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Music Ace Deluxe

 

Music Ace Deluxe ($79.95), from Harmonic Vision, combines 36 of the highly-engaging music lessons from the award-winning Music Ace and Music Ace 2 products into a single, carefully sequenced product. Designed by music education professionals, Music Ace Deluxe is a comprehensive series of music lessons and games that teach beginning music students of all ages the basics of music theory, rhythm, pitch, note reading, listening, and the keyboard. No previous musical experience or instrument is required.

This superb product has a strong curriculum combined with lots of games and fun activities, including the Music Doodle Pad that lets you compose your own music using a variety of musical instrument sounds. The Music Doodle Pad alone provides many hours of fun and learning. This software combines the talents of some very creative designers with the knowledge of education professionals to give you the best music instruction program we have ever reviewed at Computer Times. As a musician and editor, this program captivated me for many hours.

• Ideal for beginning and intermediate music students, young or old - any instrument
• Easy to use, self-paced learning complements traditional music instruction
• Accelerates learning music fundamentals - develops and reinforces essential aspects of learning music
• Exceptional value - affordable combination of lessons, games and a composition feature
• Excellent motivational tool - excites students about learning music
• Users develop real musical skills, not just an introduction to music
• Entertaining, highly interactive, easy to use-point and click navigation with the mouse
• Compatible with General MIDI keyboards (optional)

 

LESSONS

Under the guidance of animated tutor Maestro Max, students are led through a carefully sequenced series of music lessons. Used alone or as a complement to traditional music lessons, this program will challenge, engage and motivate music students and help them succeed by mastering important music concepts and skills.

• Music Ace Deluxe has a strong music curriculum with thirty-six engaging, self-paced lessons that accelerate development of fundamental music skills and music theory. Lessons cover:

1. Introduction to the Staff

2. Introduction to the Piano Keyboard

3. Beat and Tempo

4. Playing with Pitch

5. The ABCs of the Piano Keyboard

6. Hearing Rhythms

7. More Piano ABC's

8. The ABCs of the Staff

9. Basic Rhythm Notation

10. The ABCs of the Treble Staff

11. More Treble Staff ABC's

12. The Quarter Rest

13. Below the Treble Staff

14. Melody

15. Above the Treble Staff

16. The Measure

17. The ABC's of the Bass Staff

18. Above the Bass Staff

19. Notes Longer Than a Beat

20. Below the Bass Staff

21. Dotted Quarter Notes

22. Half Steps and Whole Steps

23. Rests

24. Sharps and Flats

25. Sharps and Flats on the Staff

26. Syncopation

27. The Key Signature

28. Introduction to Major Scales

29. Sixteenth Notes

30. Sharp Key Signatures

31. Three Sounds per Beat

32. The Time Signature

33. Flat Key Signatures

34. The 6/8 Time Signature

35. Minor Scales

36. Introduction to Harmony

Thirty six exciting multi-level games (one per lesson) sharpen music skills and improve retention of important lesson concepts. Colorful animated 3-D graphics, digitized sound effects, bonus points and high scores provide fun, interactive entertainment. Users can select novice or advanced difficulty settings.

 

MUSIC DOODLE PAD

This unique feature allows individuals to easily compose their own music using a variety of instrument sounds. These creative compositions can be saved and played back for others, showcasing the knowledge and skills acquired from the lessons and games. Users can also listen to and modify popular music selections from the Jukebox section of the Music Doodle Pad.

This special feature tracks an individual's progress through lessons and games. A "completion count" provides the number of times the user has gone through each section of a lesson and "games progress" provides high scores.

The new features enable user to select clef instruction (treble and bass, treble only, bass only or alto only), determine rhythmic stringency (relaxed or strict), determine game difficulty (novice or advanced), and also adjust the appearance of the notes and instruments (with or without faces).

Music Ace Deluxe ships on a hybrid CD-ROM that runs on both Windows and Macintosh platforms.

• Windows 98/2000/Me/NT4/XP
• Pentium 166 MHz or faster
• 32 MB free RAM
• 640x480 256-color display
• 60 MB free hard disk space
• 16-bit sound
• CD-ROM drive and mouse
• General MIDI keyboard OPTIONAL.

• PowerPC/iMac/G3/G4
• System 9 or OS X
• 32 MB free RAM
• 640x480 256-color display
• 60 MB free hard disk space
• CD-ROM drive and mouse
• General MIDI keyboard OPTIONAL.

Music Ace Deluxe is a superb software package for individuals and teachers alike. Whether you are an individual who wishes to learn more about music or a teacher looking for a supplemental learning tool for music instruction, Music Ace Deluxe is the best choice you can make. This incredible software package definitely deserves our coveted Computer Times Editor's Choice award. Hat's off to all involved in it design and production.

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