Little musician and my big kids :)

[Mandabplus3]

So we just downloaded LMusician ( what is the decided shorthand for that? LMusic? ) now my kids are old by forum standard    at 4,6,8 and myself This program is just perfect for all these age groups. I would go as far as saying the ideal age is somewhere between 5-9...
So a couple of things I noticed
My girls are happy to do more than one lesson in a sitting. They have a higher level of concentration, and even had the patience to stay in the room when we had a crash and mummy couldn't figure out if it was auto forward on a section or not! ( mummy still hasn't figured that one out! Anyone know how to get the entire program to do auto forward, we need it fast, they learn fast)
Jaykob age 4 needed me to hold his hands and help him clap in time once, but after that the clapping was easy for him. If the falling notes were bigger ( or increasing in size as they fell) and the line for the clap was much thicker I think he would find this bit easier. I had him grasp his hands together and only open them as the next clap was due. The girls found it easy to clap and sing along too. 
When the music appreciation is playing they immediately all turned into conductors and danced around the room  Two of them asked if they could see the guy playing the music. We could easily skip the short music appreciation section, all of them realized it was cut short, and liked the longer part better.
They loved the changing note icons and particularly the toungue out smiley!! 
I really liked it. Really really liked it! My only criticism is that the focus is on the treble clef and the base is neglected. I really don't think this is a great idea. It is cutting out a HUGE chunk of music education IMO. Especially as a fair chunk of these kids will learn piano at some point. Also it makes more sence to show some of those cords on the base clef. I know it's in semester three but why wait that long?
So over all my big kids gave it the thumbs up, they want to do it before school each morning and decided that Mozart is a crazy scary looking man 

[KL]

Great stuff, thanks for sharing!

Re Auto forward, you can set everything to auto-forward using Override. Turn it on, open settings, click on "Additional", and you'll find it there. turn on AF (green), then tick the AF check-box.

However, I would recommend against doing it. The reason it's set to AF off is to encourage you to interact with your child and take your time. You could replay the note (click scroll wheel button) or even go back (right mouse), as necessary.

Re bass clef, it's not neglected as such, just delayed.   So much to show, so little time.

To me, we're not trying to cram everything into 1 year. Who knows - when we work on year 2, we may even feel that it needs to be spread out into 3.  Compared to other music programs out there, eg., Yamaha, the LMs curriculum is already way faster (as well as covering more).

[Mandabplus3]

Thank you KL, the program certainly is big!
 I suppose I want the base clef because I grew up having only learnt the treble, and now I am struggling to learn the base for piano. I can see how hard I am finding it and hope my children get an easier time learning it.
I found it difficult while we were doing lessons yesterday to determine which sections were on auto forward and which were not. As some are and some are not, I kept hitting the mouse button and ended up skipping bits. I was thinking of setting it to auto forward for the time being, until I get a chance to play around with it more. If we interact with it it is likely my kids will be quick enough with the answers ( they were yesterday with the cords) and any games we play will be likely an extention of, but not using the program.
More questions
Does it include do re me hand signs?
Can you post a link that's good reading about the TA TA ticka ticka, TI TI note duration stuff? I would like to know more, it just keeps popping up in our lives
Yesterday we had the piano midi connected while we were doing our LMusic and when Jaykob banged on the keyboard the program threw up an error report. Was this a coincidence? Or does the program take piano imput? because my big kids will probably want to play the cords along with the program ( just as soon as they think of it!) will I need to disconnect the cords? (not difficult thankfully!)
I really think this is a great program, I would love to have the opportunity to use it with a whole class of children. I hope my future jobs allow that! Congratulations on producing your best product yet!

[mybabyian]

My little toddler has enjoyed it too and so have I.  Yes, we love the little yellow smilies.  The little wink animation makes a huge impact.  We also dance around during the music appreciation.  This gets a big grin from my little one.  I was also confused when it was auto-forward and when it was not. And, I also thought the falling notes part could be bigger.  Of course neither are very significant negatives, for lack of a better word.  Overall, I couldn't be more pleased.  What a great opportunity for us to learn something we otherwise wouldn't be able to.  I would never be able or have the time to teach what is included.  Best of all my son seems to really like it.   

[Mandabplus3]

We did two more back to back family lessons today I was much more coordinated with my mouse control, but still thinking auto forward may be for us. Will give it another try.
My kids had a smashing great time when Jaykob got the mouse and started a forwards backwards speed reading of notes, during the guess the note section. They were all three guessing those note at lightning speed. Oh and Two of the three had no trouble guessing the notes! Oh me too!!! I got them right too! Those of you reading my softmozart updates will know how happy that makes me!     

[KL]

Thanks for highlighting the problem regarding when to forward and when not to.

When a lesson is supposed to be manually forwarded, it shows a 'PRESS MOUSE TO ADVANCE" sign at the bottom at the beginning of the lesson.  I think we should just leave it there for the duration of the lesson so that it's clear.

- We do not include curwen hand signs in LMs because they are not very suitable for infants/toddlers.  Instead, in the accompanying "Teaching with Little Musician" booklet, you will see our suggested body motions chart and recommendations as to what motions you can do with your child, which we believe would be very helpful.  We have chosen not to include this directly into the LMs lessons for now.

- Re rhythm syllables, try these:
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Music/rhythmsyllables.html
http://www.classicsforkids.com/teachers/training/rchart.asp

Oh me too!!! I got them right too!

I hope that's a good testament to our belief that this program will also help adults!

[Mandabplus3]

I have absolutely no doubt this program will also help adults develop their musical ear! Prior to this week my recognition of RE was basically a guess! Now I can get it right during LMusic, tomorrow I may find time to test myself on the piano too!
Tomorrow I will look for that mouse icon, it is so easy to figure out which is auto forward in LR I guess I was looking for the same green/red light in the same spot...so lazy is my brain   

I will also add the hand signals for my kids. They can easily do them. We shall perhaps add one or two at a time to get them all going smoothly. Oh dear more things for mummy to learn!  The girls sort of know them maybe I can sit this one out    I do understand why you havnt included them. The two years olds would struggle, especially to do it at speed.
Thanks for the links. ta ta ticka ticka too 

[patreiche]

Well I just downloaded the new version of Little Musician and I love it, but mine keeps crashing. Running Windows 7.It seemed to get worse after I downloaded the rainbow colors. I love the idea of different colors for the notes because I think children learn better through visual stimulus of colors versus letters.

About the crashes: they are not repeatable but always occur where the notes are being displayed. It happens fairly frequently like almost once per lesson. Chord recognition seems to be the most popular spot and a thin red x is displayed on the screen prior to crashing, click to send error report and chord comes up and LM freezes and restarts.

[Mandabplus3]

I have seen this crash too. It doesn't matter what you press it seems to need to restart. I havnt put my finger on a cause as yet so I am still working it out to send a specific error message. I am not using win 7 so I don't think that's the issue.

[KL]

Can you please help us by creating a diagnostic report under Tools and emailing it to support(at)brillkids(dot)com , along with a short description?

Thanks.

[Frukc]

My 4 year old also asks for more and more, she likes LMs very much

At the beginning there are notes with put out tongue. Usually we do not listen because all the family put out tongues and laugh
Very tempting; often I join them

[arvi]

Even I face the crash several times in a day. This did not occur in previous beta releases. My experience is similar to what patreiche has reported. I will try to send the diagnostic report soon.

[Skylark]

Just tried LMs with a group of older (4-6 yo) kids, whose native tongue not english. I was surprised to see what a success it was. I held their attention, engaged them and after 3 lessons they were able to do the "guess the note game". It has a lot of potential for older kids as well. Overall -- very impressive!

I did want to mention -- we have used LMs extensively in the last week since the release, and have not had a single crush, we use Windows 7.

[Mandabplus3]

Just a progress report.
All three of my kids can now recognize all of the notes in the cords we have used, and individual notes. Yep even Jaykob can name the notes in the cords and almost always guesses individual notes correctly. . We have only done 2 weeks worth of lessons in LMusic and even I can tell my ear has improved. We all occasionally miss Re, but it has been shown the least so far so in time I am sure we will get it all. My kids couldn't guess these notes accurately ( except maybe DO)  2 weeks ago but they have had exposure with softmozart, as have I. So I can say little musician will develop perfect pitch and if you have already had some music training it will do it fast!
Their favourite part is the clapping section. They get very enthusiastic about it! Singing along and clapping loudly, mostly in time 
We have been squeezing it in just before the morning school run, the kids will hurry to get dressed/organized a bit quicker to do it. We have been late to school twice because of it 

[KL]

Thanks for the nice update!

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