What is Perceive?

A suite of music testing and design software:

• Drills: Tests your technical music knowledge (multiple choice)
• MiniDesignWave: Create sound waves using various parameters
• MiniDrawWave: Create sound waves using a free-handed waveform
• The Machine: Generates and samples various waveform presets
• Tunings: Demos various chords and notes
• Tutor: Trains you in note and chord recognition

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Perceive is a music-education program aimed at the school environment. Although its segmentation and structure make it excellent in that setting, it's also useful for individuals wishing to study on their own.

The package consists of six modules of varying quality. The first module, called Tutor, is for ear training in major scales, all three forms of minor scales, the pentatonic scale, and much more. Drills is exactly that: It works on scales, intervals, triads, and seventh chords. It's impressive. Mini Design Wave takes user-entered numeric descriptions of sounds, draws the corresponding waveform, and then plays the sound. MiniWaveDraw does the same thing, only in reverse. You draw the wave, and the program plays the sound and provides a numeric array that describes it. The Sound Machine lets you combine a variety of sounds and hear the output. Tunings lets you hear and experiment with historical systems of tuning.

I got the most from Tutor, Drill, and Tunings; more-advanced students would find the rest of the package more useful.

Bobker, Steve. (March 1990). Bobker's Dozen. MacUser. (pg. 40).

Download Perceive for Mac

Architecture

Motorola 68K

System Requirements

From Mac OS 6.0 up to Mac OS 7.5

Compatibility notes

Crashes under Basilisk II, tested with vMac II System 7.5.5

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Mini vMac