Music Construction Set Download (1984 Educational Game)

Compose and play a musical score using an easy graphical interface and toolkit. Use a pointer to drag notes, sharps, and other music nomenclature directly onto a staff, then play your creation. You can cut, copy, and paste entire sections of music, as well as print your masterpiece.

Any good music creating software provides the usual enter, edit, load, save, and play functions, but Electronic Arts' Music Construction Set offers much more, and still stands to this day one of the best programs of its kind. If you have a graphic printer, MCS can graphically print sheet music. In addition to joystick and keyboard input, you may use either the Koala Pad or Atari Touch Tablet to indicate your choice of graphic icons displayed on the screen. You may use up to four voices in a four octave range, or choose the three voice, five octave range option. You control the speed, volume, and sound. MCS lets you choose from 13 different sound types. To help get you started, MCS comes with well written documentation and sample song files. The documentation not only teaches you how to use the software, it also provides information on music notation. Notes, rests, dots, ties, time signatures, sharps, flats, scales, and keys are all explained. The only real limitation I found is the 700 note maximum capacity, but since the vast majority of songs require less than 700 notes, this should not be considered very important. In short, MCS is a good example of how long well-programmed titles can stand the test of time.

How to run this game on modern Windows PC?

People who downloaded Music Construction Set have also downloaded:
Periodic Table of The Elements, Piano, Bank Street Music Writer, Leonardo Da Vinci, Microsoft Bookshelf '95, 2005: A Game of Macroeconomics, Nickelodeon Directors Lab, M*A*T*H*S Circus (a.k.a. Maths Circus)