Keyboard+Music


 * CITATION AND GENERAL INFORMATION**

Title: Keyboard Music 2.4 Author: Xu Yi Publisher: Waraxe http://www.kbdmusic.com/ Copyright: 2006 Platform (Macintosh, Wintel) 98 / NT / 2k / Me / XP Peripherals: keyboards, speaker Grade/Age: Early Elementary, Late Elementary, and Middle School Type of Class: General Music


 * TEACHER SUPPORT**

Teacher support is limited to a selection of tips and help tools within the software package.


 * INSTRUCTIONAL CONTENT**

Keyboard Music is a program that allows people to use their computer keyboard to “play” musical instruments. It's easy enough to use that anybody can play the instrument they like, which makes it especially good for kids. You can choose from more than 100 kinds of musical instruments with it. This kind of variety can help teach kids about the wide range of musical instruments in the world. You can play the musical instruments with just a couple of mouse clicks, making it economical for students and teachers on a limited budget. Keyboard Music allows you play musical instrument with automatic rhythms such as waltzes, the blues, or rock and roll.

National Music Standards that could be addressed through this software: 2. Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music. 3. Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments.


 * INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN AND PEDAGOGICAL SOUNDNESS**

This program is good for kids to learn the unique sounds of different instruments. They can simply find the instrument they like and play it. It’s not a very complex program, so it can be used for children in elementary school. With a bit of practice, even small children will find that it’s easy to use, but the very limited amount of instruction built into the program means it would probably work best with students who know at least some music already, or have begun their own music lessons. This program is completely user driven, you just need to play the musical instruments through a computer keyboard or mouse.

· Sequence of Materials: Good · Pace of Instruction: Good · Quality of Instruction: Good · Motivation for Students: Good


 * RECORD KEEPING**

Students can save their music, they also can export MIDI file.


 * OVERALL EVALUATION**

Keyboard Music 2.4 is a program for kids. It’s easy to learn, with more than 100 musical instruments built in. It is a good tool to introduce different musical instruments to use in a general music class, but unfortunately it uses a 1=do, 2=re, 3=me, 4=fa, 5=so, 6=la, 7=ti style system, which adds another thing students must remember as they play. I think this software would be better used with Chinese kids because in China, people use two different kinds of music score. The western-style staff that people here are all familiar with, and what Chinese know as “traditional score,” which uses numbers to identify notes.

Rating – 2/4 star rating

Reviewed by: Zheng Tang 10/27/08