Groovy Music City

Goovy Music City is the last in a series of three music education software titles from Sibelius Music.  The software provides instruction in twelve different areas for students in the upper elementary grades.  Topics covered include note reading, instrument identification,scales,composing, and many more.

  Groovy City attempts to do what many elemetary music theory software packages have done before but in a new, more age appropriate manner. The Groovy Music series includes three titles, Groovy Shapes, Groovy Jungle, and Groovy City. The latter is intended for upper elementary age students from 9-11, and is presented in a modern, techno style.

The software has two "modes" of instruction. The first is an exploration mode in which students move systematically through a series of demonstrations and quizzes to help them learn the basics on one of twelve different musical topics. As a reward for completing each of these sections the student earns special sound effects for use in the "create" mode of the program.

In "create" mode, students can drag and drop dozens of different building blocks of music from simple drum and bass patterns to arpeggios and other musical tidbits. Students can even create their own personal music clips by fingering in notes using an attached MIDI keyboard.

Teacher Control Without A Dedicated Lab Controller:
Teachers can have a good deal of control over the software, with the ability to control all Groovy City equipped computers via the network connection. The teacher can set the scope of the days lesson as well as control what key the music is to be written in.

Explore Mode Comes Up Short In Some Areas:
The explore mode covers a great deal of material and for the most part it does it well, but the relative inflexibility and lack of any real artificial intelligence allows students to simply guess at the answers to some questions rather than reviewing material to get the correct answer.

Overall A Very Worthwhile Addition To Any Elementary Computer Lab:
Despite the flaw mentioned previously Groovy City is a very solid, stable, and educational software package that is well worth the purchase price. Used in conjuction with the other Groovy Music titles the series is a very positive and fun addition to any music education curriculum.