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Take Note Ear/Sight Training

 

Below is a screenshot of Take Note 2.2. The program has just corrected the answer for a visual scale question. The question was posed as a name in the name window at the top and answered via the piano. The green aura surrounding the notes indicates that they are correct. Questions can appear on any grid, and be answered via any other grid.

 

Notes and forms appear on the staff, piano, and guitar automatically. The guitar even places notes logically and in real time using three different types of fingerings: open, closed position, and extended. Chords are also translated logcially, one per string.

 

The note window on the far right lets you enter notes by their letter name as well as change duration and accidentals.

Main Screen

 

 

A Brief History -- and Future

Take Note was originally published for the Atari ST in 1987, though primative versions had been programmed on both the Atari 400 and Commodore 64 in machine code well before that. The Atari version and the subsequent Amiga version actually sold quite well, but the PC version, released in 1995 was as total flop. Not only were there hardly any musicians using PCs at the time, there were also several other ear training programs on the market. In 2001, the 2.1 version was released into the public domain but was buggy as well as pretty darn ugly.

In December of 2005, it occured to us that there were probably a lot of musicians that wanted a quick and easy utility to drill themselves on recognizing musical forms aurally and visually without all the fuss and "teaching" that other programs "offer". Take Note is rather unique in the way it cross-relates musical information, fostering an understanding of the various instruments that might otherwise be lacking

Version 2.2 was developed because I didn't want 2.1 being the final word on the matter, floating around giving users a bad impression of my programming abilities--which have matured in the last ten years. The interface and appearance have been greatly improved for v2.2 with a number of improvements to come for version 2.5 such as larger grids; a playback and drill control bar; bass, cello, viola, and violin grids; better looking notation; tabbed dialogs, etc.