MUSIC MICRO, PLEASE

Just to prove that Tech Niche isn't all soulless stuff about insensitive peripherals, JON BATES and GRAEME KIDD throw away their joysticks and take up the baton to conduct a round-up of sensitively musical software.

No matter how wonderful you believe your Spectrum to be, in arguments with Commodore, BBC or even Amstrad owners, you will have to concede that they have the edge when it comes to sound. The Amstrad, for instance, has three channels, which allows you to create a stereo sound and a white noise generator. Your 'umble Speccy doesn't have a chip dedicated to sound generation and gets by when it comes to making sound by switching the 'speaker' on and off, more rapidly for higher notes, less rapidly for the lower ones.

The BASIC Manual is a bit naughty when it tells you: '...because there is only one loudspeaker in the computer you can only play one note at a time, so you are restricted to unharmonised tunes.'

'Loudspeaker' it ain't, but the only reason why you can't play more than one note at a time is because there's only one channel which can be switched on and off to generate noise. Other computers, which have dedicated sound chips, let you use several channels and that allows more complicated, harmonised tunes to be put together. Like the manual says, if you want anything more than simple unharmonised tunes on the Spectrum 'you must sing it yourself.' As you might expect, there's quite a lot of specialised hardware and software available which extends the capabilities of the Spectrum, moving it towards (and maybe even past) the level of musical competence achieved by other machines. We'll be taking a look at these bolt-on musical goodies in future Niches; for the present we've confined ourselves to a close examination of the software which runs on the basic Spectrum.

We found six programs which, to a greater or lesser extent, take the pain out of programming tunes in the 'BEEP 1,0: BEEP 5,3:' format, and three musical education packages which go part of the way to helping the musically illiterate get to grips with the subject. Rather than plunge in at the deep end on our own, we persuaded a real live musician - Jon Bates - to help evaluate the software.

A professional keyboard player, author of a book on synthesisers and keyboard teacher, Jon invented a new rating for the purposes of these reviews - MUSICALITY. We've taken account of Graphics, Educational Value and User-friendliness, but Musicality is, in effect, a musician-friendliness rating and depends on the musical accuracy of the software. Before awarding the Musicality rating for each program, Jon asked himself the question, 'is it in accordance with the basic rules of how music is written and sounds?' 0/10 for Musicality would make a musician scream, he told us!

The other half of the dynamic reviewing duo, Mr Kidd, claims to know a bit about computers but is a self-confessed music illiterate. Nuff said about him.

EDUCATIONAL INTERLUDE

Why should Rosetta McLeod have all the fun? Three music education packages came our way during the course of the research for the feature, and so Jon Bates loaded them into a Spectrum and reviewed them with the assistance of his musically illiterate mate, Graeme, aged 28 and tone deaf!

FIREWORK MUSIC & WATER MUSIC
Software Cottage
19 westfield Drive, Loughborough
£6.95

Musically the four games in the two packages from Software Cottage are accurate and have been designed with children in mind, but proved to be appealing to my not too young assistant.

Firework Music is a charming little note naming game, in which you have to protect your box of fireworks against a descending spark by naming a note displayed on the screen's stave. A correct answer wins an extra firework, and the player is treated to a firework display after ten correct answers have been given.

Water Music gives training in identifying sharps and flats, again displayed on either the Bass of Treble Clef. The player is encouraged to develop a familiarity with accidentals, playing against time as with Firework Music, only this time trying to raise a bucket in a well. The bucket slowly falls to the bottom of the screen as time passes, jumping up each time a correct response is given.

Both games have an optional 'lesson' at the start (without which my assistant couldn't have attempted them) and are designed for children in the 7-12 age range. All in, the help facilities are quite good and the graphical presentation was quite cheerful.

HOLMES INVESTIGATES

Paul Holmes inspects a number of new software packages for the ZX Spectrum.

This program is another educational package aimed at teaching the notes and their positions on a musical score. It is split into two programs, one for the treble clef and the other for bass.

The user is first shown where all the notes lie on the stave then has to commit them to memory for the test. It consists of a musical note being shown and the user having to name the right note before a burning cinder falls into the firework box on the screen and destroys them. The more notes that are named, the faster the cinder falls. After naming ten notes there is a mini fire work display which will probably entertain users in the younger age brackets.

The screen display of the stave, clef and notes is sufficiently large so that if it were displayed on a large TV in a classroom, the whole class would be able to see it. The program is bug free as far as I could tell, and seems a useful tool for teaching one of the more basic points of music to a fairly young age group - mainly in the Juniors and Primary school.

Overall, very good value for £5.00.

Firework Music/Water Music £5.95
Jumpy Snake Blues/Honkey Tonk £5.95
Software Cottage
19 Westfield Drive
Loughborough
Leics, LE11 3QJ

Two packages, each containing two programs which are drill and practice exercises in the form of games. An interesting and painless way of improving your knowledge of musical notation.