Last time, I evaluated Music Lessons II, which involved chords and harmony. Music Lessons I is just as super, for the beginning level of music theory.

Music Lessons can be set up for MIDI chips built into the computer, or can play and receive MIDI notes through a MIDI keyboard, which is great for beginning piano students. It works much better when they can actually touch a keyboard rather than clicking a keyboard picture with a mouse.

Lessons include playing notes on the staff on the keyboard, the circle of fifths, identifying key signatures, scales (including modal scales!), scale degrees, intervals (specific intervals, including augmented and diminished), and note/rest duration values. These can be either visual or aural identification, on three difficulty levels.

The menu selections allows for a wide variety of drills. For instance, on note identification, you can select among space notes only, line notes only, or a combination, and treble, bass, or alto clef, or a combination of all three. The window displays answer displays, checking box, and a Show Me button to display the correct answer. There is also a Play button for aural drilling.

Music Lesson I includes a Progress Report, which summarizes in detail the drills completed. This is a terrific aid for teachers who set up computer labs for student self-reviews, to monitor how they are progressing and to see whether they are working on their own levels of achievement, or whether they need to go back and review certain concepts. You can create a Progress Report from this window. Simply go to File and select New Progress report, then type in the student name.

The options selection allows you to set your preferences, including the maximum number of accidentals for key signatures, whether you want harmonic or melodic intervals, sound selections, and even color preferences and assigned MIDI keys to correlate with your MIDI keyboard.

There are three scale drills. Because every note can have three enharmonic names (if you include double flats and double sharps), Music Lesson I allows for Strict or Lenient answers in the scale drills. Strict answers enforce music theory rules. Lenient answers relax those so you can play the notes on the keyboard without concern.

The skill level for note duration can be determined by beat units (and selecting their corresponding time signatures). The most advanced level combines all of them.

The user's manual is clearly written. However, you might not want to keep it handy for students in case they want to change your settings:-) If it doesn't matter, most students from a fifth or sixth grade level on up should have no trouble with the manual.

Suggested uses for this program: If you teach privately in a home studio, it would be a great program for a waiting student to use to do review on theory. I would even suggest using it occasionally as the lesson just as a review. For classroom use, purchase the license and use for a computer lab, especially if you have access to a MIDI keyboard. If at all possible, you could even assign units and use the Progress Reports to your benefit, because student names are recorded on the program.

MiBAC software, on the whole, should be on your tech budget wishlist. Several of these features can be used starting with third grade, or whatever grade you start teaching notes on the staff. With the preference feature, it's easily adaptable.