Music software

Having completed a degree in music, what feels like a lifetime ago now, I was thrilled will the opportunity to review a new piece of music software call PROTÉGÉ. When first installing a new piece of software, one of the first things that you want to do, is see just what the program is capable of and this was no exception. Having clicked on ‘OPEN’, there were six pre-prepared pieces for me to listen to. These demo pieces were fantastic and really showed the capabilities of the program. However, I was a bit disappointed, as these demos had been created in the more advanced sister program called NOTION. Undeterred, I decided to have a go at creating my very own masterpiece, using PROTÉGÉ.

There are a minimum number of icons, which is great, as you don’t get the overwhelming feeling of panic when you aren’t sure which one to choose. The whole program is driven from a simple set of drop-down menus on the right hand side, although you do need a certain amount of musical knowledge to understand what some of the terms mean. Setting up the initial score is relatively simple, once you understand how to navigate through the menu system. I chose to input the notes using the computer keyboard, although you could enter them via a midi keyboard. One thing which was mildly irritating, is that you seem to have to enter your own bar lines, even though you have entered a time signature, which interrupted the flow somewhat.

The program allows you to enter either single staves, or multiple ones to score for a whole orchestra. Each stave can be named with either the instrument name or child’s name should you wish to. Although I chose to enter actual notes, you could enter rhythmic patterns for the children to follow. This is probably the next step to take when moving on from simple graphic scoring. You can also enter lyrics, rests, accidentals, slurs, tempo marking and all expression marks, even down to ‘up’ and ‘down’ bow markings for strings!

Once you have entered the notation, the playback facility allows you to listen to your composition. Printing it out though was much easier than following it on the screen, as it seemed quite jerky and difficult to follow.

After about 15 minutes, I had created something which was quite tuneful and certainly looked very impressive when printed out! I was even able to save it as a .WAV file to put into a Powerpoint presentation!

This piece of software is definitely aimed at the upper end of the primary age phase and needs adult input. I can see huge benefits for developing musical skills for the Gifted and Talented and also for the music specialist when trying to print out ‘real’ music for children to read. It works really well as a music notation package – one of the easiest and user-friendly I have seen – but you may need to look elsewhere if it is a sequencer you are looking for.

For information about the program, go to http://www.notionmusic.com/products/protege/