Musical Me! Entertains And Educates
Musical Me! - by Duck Duck Moose ($1.99) by Duck Duck Moose aims to teach children about notes, rhythm, pitch and instruments – all concepts essential for the musical beginner to grasp. It’s easy to see that the developers tried to think outside the box when it came to just how to teach children each of these concepts. Two of the developers are trained as classical musicians and know how to break down the initial building blocks of learning the basics of music.
The first mini game involves familiar songs such as “Skip to My Lou,” “The Muffin Man,” “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” and many more. As your child listens to these songs being sung, he or she can play with cute “monsters” – help them grow large and dance to the music.
The second mini game seeks to teach children about rhythm and involves birds flying across the screen as drums play in the background. Using the drums as a “metronome” of sorts, your child can tap on the birds one at a time to play out the melody of the song.
The next game is a memory game of notes. Several planets appear on screen. When touched, each produces a note. The game plays several notes and asks your child to remember the pattern and copy it. This is good practice to memorizing musical melodies and patterns. I didn’t expect this kind of game to be involved in Musical Me! but I think it’s a good choice and appropriate to the learning objective.
Lastly, there is a mini game involving notes. Well, it’s not so much a game as a license for creativity. The treble clef appears with several notes on it. Your child can adjust each note as they wish, then play the finished product.
The app includes three levels of difficulty depending on the age of your child or their familiarity with music in general. I am very happy about this – rather than there being a very small age window that can enjoy this app.
I was hoping that the scale learning objective would be a little more thoroughly covered in the 3rd level. It’s not really touched on, but it would be nice if there was an option to view a keyboard with each of the notes in the scale labeled and the treble clef above the keyboard illustrating the association. Little ones would no doubt enjoy learning to play simple melodies this way. I know some children won’t ever learn the piano, but it’s a good starting spot as far as understanding the musical scale and how it translates on an instrument.
Overall, it’s a great start. I would like to see a bit more meat to the app, but I have no doubt Duck Duck Moose will be adding much more in the future. Many of the memorable characters from their previous apps make appearances and if your child has played any other of the Duck Duck Moose apps, they will know from the start how to work this one. My kids are looking forward to the iPad version!
