PRODUCT
reviews
Children’s Music Journey
By Savilla Banister
Children’s Music Journey (CMJ)
is a software collection that
allows PK– 5 students to take
beginning music lessons from the
experts—famous composers from
the past several centuries.
To interact with the program,
students play a musical instrument
digital interface (MIDI) keyboard. I
used an M-Audio Keyrig-49 MIDI
keyboard to explore the collection’s
three volumes of music lessons and
found that the program interfaced
immediately with the keyboard’s
USB connector.
Once connected, users log in for
lessons from such luminaries as Ludwig van Beethoven, Scott Joplin, and
Fanny Mendelssohn. The selection of
characters is refreshingly diverse and
includes women and minorities as
well as composers from many different
musical styles.
Users begin each session by taking a
piano lesson from one of the composers. The first segment of each lesson
includes a short listening exercise
featuring the composer’s music, which
provides incremental music history
and piques the student’s interest in actively listening to and commenting on
the piece.
After the exercise, the composer/
instructor introduces the piano lesson
material and regularly asks for specific
student feedback. Students drive
navigation through each session with
a pause/rewind/fast-forward/play
controller (positioned in the upper
left-hand corner of the screen) and
Students learn
from a diverse
selection of
composers
of different
genders,
ethnic backgrounds,
and musical
traditions.
Instructors guide students through musical notation and piano fingering
with positive verbal feedback.
play along on the MIDI keyboard. The and improvisation exercises, and a lis-composer gives immediate feedback tening library.
on the appropriateness of their input CMJ’s Volume 1 contains 25 lesson
with positive verbal comments such as sessions, and Volumes 2 and 3 each
“Good job,” “Careful,” or “I’m sure it contain 35 lessons, for a total of 95
will be better next time,” to guide stu- lessons, plus five opportunities for
dents through such concepts as music students to demonstrate successive
notation. At the end of each lesson, accomplishments in recitals.
the program encourages students to Teachers could effectively use
explore the curriculum through addi- CMJ in elementary school music
tional reinforcement venues, including classrooms, private piano studios, or
practice rooms, games, composition homes. For classrooms with only a few
