Micro Maestro brings music alive - makes practice a pleasure and performances real!

Carl Dolmetcsh

Micro Maestro has been designed to put the fun back into music. As experienced musicians ourselves, we know how it feels to practise in the old-fashioned way, alone in your room with nothing but a music-stand and silent sheet music for company. We don't claim that Micro Maestro contains any magic formula - if you're learning a musical instrument, it won't make you a virtuoso overnight, because there's no substitute for practising.

That's why we've made the program as flexible and instructive as possible. With its unique ability to 'scroll' the music onto the screen of your micro, together with the wide range of practice aids it offers, you'll discover that practising your instrument will be transformed into an exciting and rewarding experience - and your technique will quickly improve too.

But practising and perfecting your instrumental skill is pointless unless you can perform - which is why the Micro Maestro RECORDER TUTOR provides you with a separate audio cassette containing exclusive professionally-recorded backing tracks of the tunes you've been practising. Now you become the soloist in a realistic and exciting performance. Micro Maestro brings music alive for you, and helps you to become the skilled musician you want to be.

Before using Micro Maestro, we recommend that you read the operating instructions carefuly - only then will you be confident that you are using all the facilities that it offers.

We hope that the Micro Maestro RECORDING TUTOR will give you hours of entertainment, and help you to fulfil your musical ambitions.

Loading
On side one of the program cassette, you'll find the operating system followed by the data for Lessons A to K. On side two of the same cassette are the operating system and the data for Lessons L to S.

How to use the Micro Maestro program
Your computer has already automatically loaded the first lesson.

To familiarise yourself with the way the Micro Maestro RECORDER TUTOR works, we suggest that you start by looking at the first exercise.

Press 'A' to VIEW MUSIC. You are now seeing Page One. Press the cursor right arrow to view forward through the exercise. You will notice that the bars of the music are numbered. Press BREAK to return to menu.

Press 'E' to VIEW NOTES. The recorder is shown upside-down because that is the way you see the instrument when you are playing it. The diagram shows the first note to be played. Press BREAK to return to menu.

Press 'F' to PLAY MUSIC. Read the music in the same way as sheet music. When you come to the end of the last bar, the following bars will already be showing at the top of the screen. You can use the SPACE BAR to stop and re-start the music. Press BREAK to return to menu.

Press 'C' for the PRACTICE AIDS. These are designed to make your learning and practising easier and even more enjoyable; you can use each practice aid on its own, or a combination of them together, to suit the Exercise you are working on; as your playing improves, you will be able to test yourself by removing the practice aids one by one.

The PRACTICE AIDS appear in the following order: (Press Y for yes, n for no)

VOLUME ON?
Listening is an essential part of playing a musical instrument. The computer plays the melody line, and this will help you to learn the tunes. When you feel confident enough to play the music on your own, turn the volume off.

BEAT COUNTER ON?
This provides you with a visual reference to the number of beats in a bar, and the relationship of the rhythm groupings to the beat of the bar.

BOUNCING BALL?
The Bouncing Ball indicates precisely the notes to be played. In the early stages you will find this very helpful - no danger of losing your place. When you are familiar with the tunes you can turn the Bouncing Ball off.

CHANGE TEMPO?
When you are learning the tunes you can adjust the tempo - start off by playing slowly, and gradually build up to the correct tempo.

Press D to "Choose section". If you want to concentrate on a particular bar or section, type in the bar number(s) that you want, then press the RETURN key. The music of these bars, together with the practice aids you may have chosen, will repeat until you press the BREAK key. Again, use the SPACE BAR to stop and start as required.

How To Select Lesson
Press B to SELECT LESSON. Now press the letter corresponding to the lesson you want, and the word 'Searching' will appear. Press the PLAY button on your cassette player. When the data for the lesson has been found, the word 'Loading' will appear. The loading will take approx. one minute. When the lesson is loaded, main menu will re-appear on the screen - press STOP on your cassette player. Lessons A-K are on Side One, and Lessons L-S are on Side Two.

How To Select Exercise
Press G to SELECT EXERCISE. When prompted press the number of the exercise required.

Index (overleaf)
On the next two pages you will find the INDEX. This clearly shows you the titles of the tunes used in the Lessons and Exercises, the order in which they appear, and the correct performance tempo for each tune.

There are two versions of each song: the first is a performance which includes the melody line, and the second leaves the melody line out so that you become the soloist.

If you wish to read the music from the screen while you perform, turn the volume off on the program. Return to performance tempo as displayed on the screen. To synchronise audio cassette and screen graphics, press the SPACE BAR as the music begins.