3dGameMan …to the point news and reviews !

Without a doubt,electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick’s Making Music CD-ROM gives kids of all ages (5 years and up) an innovative, inspiring and unique approach to composing creative music.

The CD-ROM (Windows and Mac) captures the subtle and not so subtle connection Subotnick makes between music and art. Like an artist, kids can paint music through a rich palette. They can the step back and view their masterpiece while having the opportunity to edit or add on to the composition until it is done. A vivid array of games and activities awaits children while they learn intuitive concepts used by actual composers in Making Music.

The interface is simple and smooth. Your cursor turns into a paint brush as you move it over a composition space and paint unique melodies. The CD-ROM’s sound quality and the volume control performed well on the Macintosh Quadra. The overview section does an excellent job explaining the various activities including Building Blocks, Mix & Match, Melody & Rhythm Maker, Games and Making Music.

Young learners can play Find the Same game, where they get an ear for music by listening to similar musical patterns and identifying exact matches. The game takes place in the middle of a football field where the crowd cheers as kids get the answers right.

Name That Difference is a fun-filled game where kids listen to two melodies and distinguish the differences (faster, slower, backwards, upside-down and same) by clicking on drum majors. After accumulating 175 points, kids earn a #1 blue ribbon.

The art and music connection is obvious when kids choose different musical instruments on a paint palette and hear the name of the instrument and the sound it makes. There are 16 different instruments including piano, trumpet, french horn, clarinet, flute, guitar, violin, organ, marimba, banjo, voice, and steel drum, among others.

Listening to different musical scales (major, minor, pentatonic, whole tone and chromatic) is a blast for kids as they choose a musical scale or create their own for their unique composition.The tempo of the tunes kids make can be adjusted in an easy to use tempo bar.

Building Blocks is a great game where kids play parts of songs and re-arrange six traditional compositions to create a different tune. By teaching kids that there is a beginning, middle and end to compositions similar to building sentences, it allows kids to select certain melodies and place them in a different order. This is also an exercise in learning music repetition as kids discover that certain parts repeat over again in songs. Just click on the pencil icon to create your very own section of melody for an extra challenging activity!

Mix and Match is an interesting activity where kids can experiment with various instruments while manipulating photo image sections of kids in funny poses. Scrolling through the instruments and matching instruments to the poses is lots of grins and giggles.

With no reading skills required to play Making Music, this software gives younger kids a chance to write, listen and change music as easy as using a basic paint program.

Original compositions, silly compositions and even wacky compositions can be easily saved into a composition book where each composition can be named with a title and given a small picture to go with the title.

In Making Music, music is composed by moving birds up and down virtual telephone wires, and beats are selected by moving eggs across the screen. Volume and instrumentation is also selected. By playing Making Music, kids get a good feeling that music is fun and happy, without the usual anxiety early music learners experience about note reading.

When kids need help, they can click a help icon (Morton Subotnick’s cartoon character) and he will remind them that they can hold their cursor over an object to get a few hints. Otherwise, it may be a good idea to go back to the Overview with your child.

One of the biggest thrills in most parents’ lives is the moment their child experiences music. When 4-year-old Timmy discovered this software, he was hesitant, at first, to brush the screen with music. After 20 minutes of experimentation, he grasped the concept completely and eagerly composed melodies which, quite frankly, amazed me.

When a CD-ROM encourages young children to let their imaginations flow and offers them endless opportunities to really make their own music without needing to buy expensive instruments, it provides an excellent value and important teaching tool for parents and teachers. For less than $40, Making Music delivers an outstanding multimedia product which parents will be talking about for a long time.

Making Music CD-ROM costs around $39.95. For more information, contact Voyager at (800) 446-2001 .