Practica Musica

Big Notes option: At any time you can toggle between normal and double-sized music by clicking the music size tool at the upper left of the music window. This enlarges everything in the music window, including text.

Exploring Theory onscreen : A new digital edition of our coordinated textbook Exploring Theory with Practica Musica is now included onscreen in its own menu. Pages are laid out just as they are in the print version of the book (available separately). What's most impressive about the digital textbook? The music examples are "live!" Each music example in the digital book is now a QuickTime movie - click and you'll see it come to life and play (Windows users can download Apple's QuickTime free). Most examples are brief but several are much more extensive than the examples in the printed book - for example, the illustration for Sonata form is the entire first movement of Mozart's 29th Symphony, in which you watch the 1st violin part and read scrolling comments on the form as the music plays. Note: the Exploring Theory textbook with movies is a large file (40MB); we've made it a separate and optional item in the program installer for that reason. If you have a slow internet connection and want to use the digital book you may prefer to order the CD rather than the downloadable edition.

MIDI Export: You can now export any music example or problem as a MIDI file. This is also useful for your compositions made with the writing tools - an exported MIDI file can be played by any computer and can even be converted to an MP3 using software such as Apple's QuickTime Pro and iTunes.

WebStudent activities: Instructors who have made customized versions of Practica Musica activities can now upload them to their class's WebStudents account. Once the special activities are on Ars Nova's servers, students using WebStudents anywhere in the world can open those customized activities within Practica Musica simply by clicking the new "Choose a class activity at WebStudents" command. The program will automatically open the remotely stored activity and run it on the student's computer - there is no need to download the file and locate it; all that is required is an internet connection on the computer.

Skill Graphs: We've had requests for a scorekeeping device that would show changes over time. The new Skill Graph is an optional addition to progress reports that displays a chart showing how the student's scores have changed since first attempting an activity. The graph also states the date of the first and most recent use of each activity. The graph is based on percentages of correct answers versus problems attempted.

New activities: Several version 5 activities are based on a new design that resembles questions in the AP Music Theory exam: four music examples are displayed and one is heard: the student decides which was the one that sounded. Another new idea is found in two of the beginning-level activities of Course1: instead of identifying an interval or chord alone, the student is presented with two in succession and is asked which was played first. This technique is particularly helpful in the beginning stages of learning.

New capabilities: We've added the ability to incorporate moveable-do solfege symbols (tonic is always do) into an activity. These can be displayed on the keyboard, or above the notes, or both. There is a new ability to play a multistaff piece while emphasizing one of the voices - particularly useful in polyphonic dictation exercises. Music files of your own creation can be used as audible examples playable with a button. Activities can automatically move on to a specified different activity, allowing you to create activities in series.

Easier use on school computers: The new Student Edition CD can run from its CD even if write access is available only for the student's own partition on the computer. This is particularly useful when combined with Webstudents online record storage.

Course One: "Course 1: The Basics" is a linked series of 10 activities that takes the student from one exercise to another. Each activity is a prerequisite for the next one, and each activity automatically launches the next activity once a student has gained proficiency on the current topic. Reaching the conclusion of the series provides a real sense of accompishment: the student has learned and has shown evidence of having learned. This beginner course provides a carefully planned introduction to the basics of music theory and ear training:

1. Distinguishing whole steps from half steps

2. Playing whole steps or half steps

3. Introduction to the major scale.

4. Playing a major scale melody (with automatic accompaniment)

5. Beginning to read pitches, using the treble clef

6. Distinguishing interval types (2nd from 3rd, etc.)

7. Distinguishing interval qualities (major/minor, etc.)

8. Reading simple rhythm notation (uses the computer keys for tapping)

9. Reading rests (adds understanding of rests)

10. Major and minor triads.

Practica Musica 4.56 includes an onscreen manual accessible through a new menu titled "Instructions." The manual covers everything from setting up MIDI, to use of the Activities menu, to explanations of the notation tools - including instructor information regarding editing activities, organizing student files, and making class reports.

Practica Musica 4.552 makes valuable improvements that affect the Chord and Interval Ear Training activities (and any similar activities made by instructors). By request we've brought back a feature of Practica Musica 3, enhanced for the current program: when doing one of these multiple choice ear training activities you can now listen to the sound of a wrong answer in order to compare it with the correct answer. If you make a mistake the program waits instead of moving on, so that you have a chance to do the comparison. It will also voice your "wrong" choice as closely as possible to the voicing of the "right" choice, to make a better comparison. This new feature requires that you replace the old activity files for interval ear training and chord ear training - the easiest way to do that is to just update the entire activities folder using the "activities only" option in your installer. Or you can download just the altered activity files at our Activity Library. The activity library also contains a stuffed form of the entire activity folder, if you'd rather do that than run the installer again. Version 4.552 will also summarize example scores in the "main" activity entry when forming a progress report, and contains various other small improvements. The program update is obtained in the usual way, by running the "Update Existing Practica Musica" option in your installer

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new feature: the instructions window accompanying activities can now include text of any length, formatted with html. Instead of the former 3 blocks of 240 characters each you now can include instructions of any length that will appear in a window with a scrollbar. You should create the instruction text as a separate file formatted in html and then import the file into the activity using the Create/Edit Activity command. The instructions become an internal part of the activity file so that the activity remains portable to both Mac and Win computers. An example of this kind of instruction window is found in the new activity "Spelling Secondary Dominants," which is now available in the Activity Downloads page.

This update also includes minor glitch fixes - for example, the tool tips option is correctly marked in the display options menu if chosen.

If there is only one student file in the Practica Musica Students folder, that file will automatically be selected and opened when the program launches, so that you don't need to choose your file. Once in the program you can still sign out, if desired, and use the "sign in" command to locate a different file.

The File Menu now contains a Page Margins command for altering the margins of a printed page of music. On the Macintosh this dialog also contains a print reduction/enlargement box that should be used to tell the program if you are using reduction or enlargement in the Page Setup, so that it can adjust margins accordingly.

this new version can now set the font and size of the text in an "item label," which lets you use special-symbol fonts to put additional symbols into a score.

This is a fix: Scores are better centered in the print margins. Previously a score with many tracks might end up shifted somewhat to the right on the printed page.

To get version 4.548 just run the "update existing Practica Musica" option in your Practica Musica 4.5 installer.