OK. But Needs Work. – ABC Music Review

This is another in the Peapod Labs ABC series, which have lots of simple pleasures to offer curious little ones. In this one, you can discover a musical instrument for any letter of the alphabet, listen to (and sometimes watch) it being played, and learn something about it. While the wide variety of subjects Peapod Labs is attempting to expose young children to is admirable, their apps could be SO much better with some careful fine tuning and it's perplexing to me why they have not taken more time to address the obvious clumsiness of their format. The narrator speaks in the odd, unnatural voice of a computer, plucking. one. word. at. a. time. out. of. a. data. base. with. out. any. natural. connection. between. the. words. and. with. very. odd. intonations. When you want to hear an example of an instrument being played, your finger must maintain constant contact with the picture in the pop-up window in order to do so. Young children are not likely to sit and hold their finger on a picture until they have heard the selection of music. Furthermore, you are often simultaneously being asked to swipe your finger back and forth across the image to "uncover" or "paint" the instrument in the picture while the musical selection is being played. This, too, is likely to cause intermittent contact with the screen by little hands. Peapod Labs does not seem to understand its target audience very well. Young children's attention span is also very short and needs to be grabbed quickly and held with a certain intensity. Some of the musical samples offered are inappropriately long, delayed, and/or do not offer the instant delight they could and should for a very young audience. And occasionally they offer peculiar or uncharacteristic sounds from the instrument shown. [For "orchestra," all you get is a tune up.] I think A LOT of editing needs to be done in this area. And it wouldn't hurt to get some input from musical professionals as well as early childhood educators. Finally, as a music lover, what I found most disappointing about this app was the quality of some of the musical examples. If you're going to introduce young children to the wonders of music and musical instruments, why not introduce them to best examples of those instruments being played? My heart just broke and sank when I heard the samples for banjo. One of the towering geniuses on that instrument, Belá Fleck, is recording up a storm and setting stages on fire around the world, but this app offered only a few flat twangs from a rough, spiritless instrument. And that was certainly not the only instrument to disappoint.
Review by MakeGrandmaHappy on ABC Music.