Tuneful friend with a wide repertoire - Notate

on Thursday 20 March 2008 - 06:38:04 | by Merlin

Notate 2 review, by Hugh John

In an era of 'Swiss-Army-Knife' software, there’s something refreshingly commendable about a company that sets out to do one thing properly. Logotron modestly describes its Notate 2 program as “a music composition program intended for children with no particular previous musical knowledge that provides a way for all pupils to try out musical ideas without having to perform them.”

No grand, vaunting ambition but, make no mistake, Notate is an intelligently designed classroom tool with clear objectives, attractive interface and well prepared support material that should be a distinct boon for pupils studying music at key stages 1 to 3.

Notate uses traditional notation to encourage students to explore composition, patterns, structures, sound and rhythm. The program’s home page displays a typical Windows-style menu bar – File, Edit, View, Song, Track, Help – below which sit the specific features; Cut, Paste, Copy, Record, Play, Forward, Back, a metronome and volume slider.

See special offer, right

Below this again you’ll find an arrangement of notes and rests ranging in length from semibreve to demi-semiquaver. These - as well as accidental signs and ties - can be selected using the cursor and dragged on the treble clef underneath. The default representation is a treble clef showing 4/4 time but a variety of configurations can be employed. Music can also be inputted using a Midi keyboard. Visual representations of the instruments selected appear at the beginning of the piece.

'If you are feeling experimental. you are spoilt for choice'

Logotron has provided a selection of tunes grouped into styles and genres including blues, jazz, world, classical and folk as well as some well known shanties and the inevitable nursery rhymes. Let’s be honest, how many kids get bored with Ten Green Bottles, This Old Man or London’s Burning? But here, if you are feeling experimental. you are spoilt for choice. How about West African Ghana Rhythms, Latin Rhythms or South Asian Kaherva or Roopak?

Take a look too at Logotron’s dedicated Notate website where some very helpful features have been posted up including a “How to” guide which covers such topics as Compound Time, Beaming, Template and Pattern files and Choosing Appropriate Sounds. There’s also a Music Glossary and schemes of work ICT at key stages 1 and 2.

New to version 2, the Multiple Instrument Percussion Grid offers an alternative way to notate percussion tracks. Instead of writing drum or percussion parts on to a traditional stave it’s now possible to enter them on to a grid. You might, for example have a drum kit with Ride, Crash, Hi-Hat, Snare and Bass Drum stacked up on the grid. Notate includes four drum kit presets and four percussion kits.

Notes now sound out when they are selected and dragged on to the stave. This is intended to encourage pitch recognition. The different levels of difficulty of the viewing options (increased from three to five) make Notate 2 well suited for class teaching using interactive whiteboard or projector.

Now you can add lyrics to songs

And the good news for budding songwriters is that it’s now possible to add lyrics to music tracks by simply right-clicking your mouse, choosing the Add Lyric option and typing away. Cueing up music and words is a doddle; just use the Tab key on your computer to split a word into the appropriate number of syllables.

The Mixer is an uncomplicated device; all the better to encourage young students to experiment with basic recording techniques. The track volume sliders are arranged horizontally (as they would be on a ‘real’ mixing desk) with Pan Controls above each slider and Single Track selections below.

It’s also possible to give compositions surprising levels of harmonic sophistication. The software might only permit the use of one chord per bar of music but the chord options include major and minor 7th, augmented and diminished as well as the more standard major and minor triads.

Notate 2 is an well organised program that should bring enjoyment and reward to pupils from a wide range of ability as well as offering teachers – quite a number of whom are not trained music teachers – an inspiring and structured resource.

Notate 2
Music software for primary classroom use, available by post from Logotron for £62 but for a limited period it’s possible to purchase an E-Download version for £19.99p. That’s a deal well worth investigating.

www.logo.com/notate
www.logo.com/notate/features