Gareth Jones

We’ve put together a behind the scenes blog for Learnalot at http://blog.learnalot.co.uk, on which we’ll be posting related news, announcements and resource previews on a pretty regular basis.

The blog has only just been set up, but we’ll be adding content to it regularly so should have some interesting content on there soon.

We’ve also set up a Facebook page and a Twitter account to make it easier for people to discuss the portal, its resources and to contribute their ideas both while the service is in development and when it goes live.

Since the completion of both Name that Note and Name that Note: PRE a while back, these games have been available to play for free on Quak Multimedia’s educational software section. The idea was that people could try the games and get a feel for how they played before deciding if they wanted to buy them for their own music-based website.

Since launch the games have racked up literally thousands of plays between them and although have proven pretty popular among the above-mentioned websites, the logs showed that there was a lot of traffic from certain locations that hinted at the games actually being used for educational purposes rather than as the trials they were meant to be.

I wouldn’t have minded too much if these users were contributing at all to the development of these games by providing us with some feedback, but despite requests, the comments sections have remained empty and we have received no email feedback on these games.

Quak Multimedia doesn’t exist to provide a free service – especially not to people who refuse to contribute anything back – and for providing educators with the necessary tools to help their students perfect their skills I’d have expected some comments and feedback at the very least – or preferably some sales figures that better reflect the usage statistics.

We could have made the games time-limited trials, but doing so would have meant putting more time and effort into developments that are already finished at a time when we are already busy, and all because a minority are happy to abuse good will. It just didn’t seem to be the right thing to do at this time, so instead the games have been removed from the site – but are still available to buy to anyone who wants to support us.

Thanks.

Name that Note is spin-off that focuses on improving people’s pitch-recognition over the treble clef. This time around, the note in question is played rather than shown, and you must guess the correct note simply from what you hear. You can replay the note as many times as you like, though of course the clock is always ticking so best not hang around hitting the Replay button for too long!

Once you’ve made a guess – whether you’re right or wrong – you’ll get to see the note in question on the stave for a couple of seconds before the game moves onto the next note.

For more information and screen-shots or to buy the game, please visit Quak Multimedia.