There is now a range of music software for Foundation and infant children - although whether music-making at this age should be accomplished using computer technology is still somewhat questionable.
Many software developers still feel the need to include standard music notation activities rather than focusing on music exploration and you will need to consider the value of such software in enhancing your music-making.
Musical Leaps and Bounds Brilliant Computing (Granada Learning) 39. Tel: 0161 827 2927, www.granada-learning.com
This has been designed for very young users. It is free of text and speech and has simple cartoon- style graphics. The software is easily installed and consists of six different music activities accessed by clicking on one of six quirky characters.
The first activity encourages children to experiment with a range of sounds by clicking on different monsters in a choir - each monster sings a different note in a scale. If you have a microphone attached then it is also possible to replace monsters' sounds with your own voice.
Unfortunately it is not possible to save recordings.
After the choir, comes the band. Each character has a musical instrument with a unique sound and again children can explore the different sounds by putting the band together to make their own musical arrangement.
The third character introduces the Moody jukebox which has five buttons each of which creates a different musical mood with a visual interpretation. This activity is unusual and shows how music can portray different moods or feelings such as scary, angry or happy.
Other activities include a mixing desk to explore dynamics and rhythm, 'Let's dance' to encourage movement and dance and the inevitable musical stave activity. On the whole this is an enjoyable CD-Rom and is particularly suitable for young children.
2Simple Music Toolkit 2Simple Software 39. Tel: 020 8203 1781, www.2simple.com
A suite of six musical activities which are claimed to be suitable for the Foundation Stage as well as Key Stages 1 and 2. It allows children to explore a wide variety of musical concepts, from creating simple sequences of sounds and rhythms through to composing short pieces of music.
2Explore introduces sounds and music by clicking on pictures, building up short sequences that can be recorded and saved. 2Play uses an onscreen keyboard with 12 different sounds developing pitch and melody while 2Beat develops rhythmic patterns and tempo using a drum machine. 2Sequence builds up soundscapes by dragging sounds on to different tracks enabling children to explore pitch and harmony whereas 2Synthesise has an onscreen keyboard with more than 50 sounds for recording and playing multiple music phrases.
Finally, 2Compose enables children to create short compositions again using standard musical notation.
One nice touch is the inclusion of a series of short videos which teach staff and pupils how to use the software in an appropriate curriculum context. Although the software has some sort of activity suitable for all nursery and primary children it is probably most suited to older children.
Musical Monsters Q&D Multimedia 35 plus VAT. Tel: 01332 364963, www.q-and-d.co.uk
This software abandons all attempts to introduce traditional music notation and encourages a greater sense of exploration of music sounds, similar to the drag and drop style of music-making software such as Acid Pro.
The one screen interface consists of a grid with six musical monsters at the bottom. Each monster represents a sound. Click a monster to select it and then click on the grid to position it. Place more monsters on the grid to build up rhythms and then click play and loop buttons to hear the pattern or tune.
The volume of each sound can be adjusted by dragging up or down inside each square and the speed of the tune can be adjusted with a slider - this enables the user to explore how changes in dynamics and tempo can affect a piece of music and create different moods.
By using the teacher controls it is possible to adjust the sound each monsters plays from a huge selection of MIDI instruments including different guitars, strings, brass, percussion, sound effects and voice 'oohs'.
The grid comes in three sizes each with a library of ready-made compositions. These can be used to demonstrate how to build up a piece of music, for example, getting louder, softer or faster, and as an aid in discussing aspects of music making. Each tune can be saved and exported as a MIDI file so it can be played outside Musical Monsters.
Musical Monsters has my vote but not at the expense of real and child-made instruments and bands. NW April Jones is a director of Computer Kids
