Morton Subotnick's Playing Music
© 2006 Viva Media
A fun way to introduce classical music to children, this is a collection of five activities, along with a concert hall and a glossary of 20 musical terms. The games have multiple challenge levels, a nice feature, and contain challenges such as "Which piece of music is being played louder?" (You click on each of two curtains to listen to your choices). Correct answers are rewarded with points. In another game, children listen to a piece of music and then choose a visual representation of it. For example, if the music is played loud and then soft, you would choose the picture which shows a large blue dot and then a small blue dot. Look & Listen lets you look at a musical symbol or word and then choose which music represents that idea. Make It So allows you to listen to a piece of music and then choose the symbol or word that represents what you are hearing. Finally, What's It Mean asks you a question about musical terminology, and you choose the definition which matches. The Concert Hall area offers Music Cinema, the Expression Room and an Auditorium where you can watch an animated character play your compositions. Music Cinema allows you to view one of six classical performance movies. The Expression Room is a great tool for young musicians to listen to and alter existing classical compositions. A tutorial lends explanations of all 13 musical terms which can be applied to any portion of the music. Overall this game is a good example of using both visual and auditory means to help children learn about classical music in an engaging way.
$29.99, Windows XP, Windows 98, Mac OSX
Teaches: rhythm, audio discrimination, creating music, music, memory
CTR Rating: 80%