FIGURE B

Metronome (right) and Tuning Fork (left) replace mucho $$ in music-store electronics.

PalmPiano
PalmPiano, shown in Figure C, is similar, featuring an attractive four-octave piano keyboard and easy-to-use Record, Stop, and Play commands. You can actually record your own little melodies by tapping them out on the piano keyboard. Unfortunately, the program remembers only the pitches you play, not the rhythms. You can record as slowly as you like, but everything plays back at a standard speed, without regard to the timings you used (every note gets the same rhythmic value). If the next version records note rhythms as well as pitches, PalmPiano will be a knockout.

FIGURE C

PalmPiano records live performances, sort of.

EbonyIvory
If you're trying to train yourself to be a better musician, consider EbonyIvory. You tap on the piano keyboard to hear a note and see it represented on the musical staff, which is perfectly suited for ear training. As you sit in the airport waiting for your layover to end, drill yourself; listen to the note and see if you can identify it. Learn the relationships between the way notes sound, the key on the piano that produces them, and the way they look when notated on sheet music.

FretBoard
FretBoard is an indispensable program for guitarists, displaying the correct fingerings for any note, scale, or chord. Actually, any musician can benefit from FretBoard; just being able to listen to the cleanly played chords and scales is great ear-training practice. A polished piece of work for working musicians.

The coda
Sure, the PalmPilot can play only one note at a time. Bach would have needed four PalmPilots to compose a fugue. And at the moment, the authors of music software for the PalmPilot are rushing to fill the most urgent niches first: tuning, metronome, melody-playing, and training.

But give them time. If I know anything about the world's PalmPilot programmers, it won't be long before we see racks of rock-concert MIDI equipment hooked up to a humble PalmPilot at the edge of the stage.

David Pogue (at http://www.davidpogue.com) is the author of the #1 bestselling PalmPilot book, "PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide."