Compass

Here's how it works. You spend WAY TOO MUCH money on this software that looks and feels like you are back in the mid-nineties once you start using it. You go to the first lesson (which will be in a really small window with no expansion or full screen options and then press "play" to hear the audio example attached to the lesson. At that point, either a red X appears over the box nothing appears. In either case you HEAR NOTHING. Since the program has now setup or options or file menu to configure anything you go to the user manual. The user manual has precisely ZERO troubleshooting tips. So then you go to the website and find out that you will not be able to so much as email anyone who can answer a simple question without paying for the priveledge to do so. Also, hope you are a QuickTime user because it ALLEGEDLY plays examples through quick-time and quick-time only. If you install the "free" quicktime off of the disc you get a trial version of quicktime that needs a registration code that is not provided. Thus, you must pay money to quicktime if you want a player for the alleged music and sounds built into this program. I am certain that this was a valuable program in 1996, but right now it is a big waste of time and mostly money, but hey, clearly Microsoft needed their cut and that jacked the price up. Seems we could have gotten a registration code for Quick Time out of the deal.My advice. Don't buy this or any other Sibelius product. Buy their stock. They have a 95% profit margin on all their software.bottom line: Not just a waste of money and time but a straight insulting kick to your genitals. And you pay them for the priveledge.

Bought this expecting it to both teach composition and provide composition software, and for the price that was a resonable assumption. Well, it does have a lot in there about many aspects of music theory and composition, but it doesn't really stand alone well. It would work much better in conjunction with a teacher, and was probably intended to be used in a classroom setting. Not exactly what I was looking for. And the composition software is pre-notation--also not what I was looking for. I wanted soemthing that allows composition on a staff, using standard notation, embellished with all the various notations too (trills, ties, dotted notes, etc., etc.). For that, Sibelius First does the trick very well. I was hoping to get a better level of stand-alone instruction and traditional compostion software all in one with Compass, but that's not what it does. Too bad--such a combo program would be nice.