The name Practica Musica, Latin for “practical exercises in music,” probably conjures up visions of droning away with dull drills. Yes, Practica Musica (PM) is a music-teaching program, with emphasis on sight-reading and ear training, and it’s based on traditional classical-music courses. But it offers instant feedback and a constant association between how notes look and how they sound.
Version 3.0 is more colorful, offers more variety, and features more explanatory, beautifully written on-screen text than the previous version. The new multiuser feature permits each student to carry around a personal floppy disk with progress records; this feature is slightly intrusive to the individual home user, but it’s probably a godsend to music educators. And PM’s new exercises do a terrific job of teaching chord sequences. (PM’s now hip enough to teach extended jazz chord types, too.)
From a 17-item menu, you select an exercise: sight-reading, intervals and chords, scales, rhythms, or combinations thereof. Most exercises ask you to name, play, or write a certain interval/chord/note/rhythm on the on-screen blank staff. You enter your musical response using any of four methods. You can play the Mac’s keyboard like a piano; use the mouse to click notes onto the staff; attach a MIDI synthesizer and play the keys; or sing the notes, using Autoscore, an add-on from Wildcat Canyon Software.
You’re graded with tact and clarity. The mercury in a thermometer rises as you master tougher tests; the payoff is a thunderous recorded ovation.
The program also comes with a textbook. It’s a music class in itself, covering topics from basic scales to voice leading and harmony. The book’s examples are included on the disk, so you can play and edit them, and conversely, the book frequently refers you to exercises in the software.
PM has its quirks. For example, the manual warns of conflicts with Berkeley Systems’ After Dark, accelerator cards, and so on. When you’re using the Mac’s speaker (instead of a synthesizer), chords play much softer than single notes. And after you choose an exercise, nothing happens; the program should tell you that you must select a skill level from a menu.
The Last Word All kinds of people could benefit from PM’s brand of gentle musical self-improvement. A tyke would enjoy playing random melodies on the Mac keyboard. Anyone learning an instrument (or singing) should try the pitch and rhythm exercises. Jazzers and rockers may scoff at the program’s quaint founding in classical theory — but they’d do well to pit themselves against the chord-sequence challenge. And of course, Practica Musica shines as a smart, infinitely patient personal music coach in the classroom.
Pogue, David. (January 1995). Practica Musica 3.0. Macworld. (pg. 85).
Practica Musica
Jeffrey Evans
Applications
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2015-08-13 / 
2020-04-02 / 
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practica_musica_v33.sit
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
Basilisk II
