Two Music Education Games

While busily searching for percussion instrument links for the Rhythm of Life Drum Circle eGame, I discovered two computer-based music games, designed to teach young children about music. The first is called Play It It By Ear, from a company in France called Happy Note. This game teaches a learner to recognize any music notes they hear by ear. It is billed as fun and way to say “good bye to boring old musical dictation.” Apparently, one hears a note, then clicks on the highlighted written note representation. I would wonder how long it would take to become proficient at this.

The second game is a music appreciation game called Alice in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons from Music Games International. This CD ROM based game with the cool title is aimed at 5 to 10 year olds, and offers an engaging story and dozens of educational games, puzzles and riddles that stay firmly focused on learning about music. An interactive Encyclopedia of Musical Instruments; Vivaldi’s narrated Biography and an extensive Listening Room, where kids can enjoy the complete recording of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, are also included on the CD-ROM. This sure sounds like a major improvement over the scratchy and off speed phonograph records I remember hearing when I was in elementary school.