Education
MUSIC FLASH CARDS
by James BrownA drill program that helps students learn the names of notes on the musical staff. The BASIC listing runs on all Atari computers of any memory configuration. Antic Disk subscribers RUN "D:MUSFLASH.BAS"
Here is a fairly simple program I developed when my daughter started
taking piano lessons. When learning a new subject, some drill and
practice is often necessary to sharpen skills. This is just the thing
for a computer, which can present the material in a more interesting way
than most human "drill instructors", and which never gets bored or impatient.
The purpose of Music Flashcards is to teach the positions of
notes on the musical staff. The program reinforces each correct answer
by sounding the corresponding note. It uses the regular low resolution
Atari sound voices, however, so the pitch is not very precise. This
deficiency can easily be overcome by using the technique of coupling two
sound generators to produce high-precision tones. Such a change is
recommended if you want to teach pitch recognition at the same time.
The program is very simple to use for any child who has enough
experience with the computer to know that it is usually a good idea to
press [RETURN] to complete an input. This is necessary only in the
initial "set up" sequence. During the timed response segment, only
a single keypress, representing the note shown, is needed. So, after
entering the program, correcting it with TYPO and saving a backup copy,
all you need do is type RUN and answer the prompts. The program keeps
your score, which ranges from the high 90's if you really know your notes
and have fast typing reflexes, down to zero if you aren't paying any attention
at all.
You can limit the drill to either the treble (G) clef, or the
bass (F) clef, or include both. This way the student can concentrate
on whichever area is currently being studied in regular music lessons.
James W Brown is supervisor of the Database System Engineering Group at the Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, and is librarian of the JPL Atari Computer Enthusiasts user group.
PROGRAM TAKE-APART
100- Three arrays hold the note
values
for the SOUND command,
the
character name of the note,
and
the corresponding keycode.
115- 238 Set up the title screen, read
note
values into arrays, and
play
a sequence of notes while
rotating
the colors on the marquee.
240- 245 Address pointers, and initialize
previous
score.
250- DEL is the value used
for delay loops.
It
can be adjusted to slow down or
speed
up the drill. MAXTIM counts
down
to zero while waiting for a response.
255- 267 Prompt for and accept the number of notes
for
this drill sequence. Note error trapping.
269- 285 Prompt for and accept the choice of staff
-
bass, treble, or both.
299- 327 Draw lines of staff.
330- 380 Draw clef symbols.
400- 480 Loop for drilling notes.
405- 407 Randomly pick a note from the selected range.
410- Draw the note.
420- 430 Timing loop - wait for key-press.
435- Check for correct answer.
437- 445 Sound buzzer if wrong
answer.
446- Allow up to two wrong
answers. If three,
assume
student is guessing or playing around.
447- If time runs out, show
the right answer and continue.
450- If time remaining, try
again.
459- 462 Sound the note.
464- 470 Show the name of the note.
475- Erase the note and tally
the score.
490- 499 Summarize results. Encourage improvement,
but
don't accept backsliding.
500- 520 Subroutine to rotate colors.
700- 799 Subroutine to draw a short line through a
note
(middle C or A above staff).
800- 899 Subroutine to erase a note.
900- 999 Subroutine to draw a note.
1000- Sound values for notes.
1010- Names of notes.
1020- Keycodes of notes.
1050-1053 G clef symbol.
1060-1063 F clef symbol.
1200-1280 Error trap handlers.
Listing: MUSFLASH.BAS Download