Maestro Mastery -- Explore the Composers by Byron's Games -- my REVIEW

  Disclosure: I received this product free through the Homeschool Review Crew

We are a game-playing family :) We enjoy playing a variety of games, sometimes as the whole family and other times with just two of us. Throughout the years we have played a lot of educational games, as well--if you can learn while you are playing again, that's a bonus! This past month we have had the opportunity to play the game Maestro Mastery -- Explore the Composers by Byron's Games . Over the years we have had different card games that utilized pictures of artists, but this game is a concentration-type game (at least that's what we call this style of game!) that features music composers from different eras.

The game is suggested for ages 5 and above and it can be used with two or more players. 

There are 104 cards--a pair each of fifty-two different composers. There is a poster chart of all of the composers for easy reference.

Each of the playing cards features one composer, with his or her name and years that he or she lived at the bottom. One card from each pair gives a little snippet of information about the composer; above this is a drawing/picture of the composer on a background that coordinates with his/her era of music. The era of their music is written at the top of the card, along with the country that he or she was from.

Suggested game play is similar to other matching games you may have played before --laying out the cards and taking turns flipping over two in one turn--keeping them if they are a match and turning back over if it is not a match. 

The directions suggested using only half of the deck (twenty six pairs) for regular game play, unless there is a very large group of players. For our usage, we found that it was very difficult and took a very long time to play if we used even the twenty-six pair. We preferred to use a smaller number of matches (like ten pair!) 

 I think that this game would be a great accompaniment to learning about a particular era or style of music--and a study of a few composers. It is a bit overwhelming to be faced with fifty-two or even twenty-six composers who kind of look alike in the pictures.

There is a really neat aspect to go along with this game--on the website, there is a chart of composers that parallels the poster that is included in the game. Each composer picture has a "play" button superimposed on it, and when you push that, it pops out a youtube video of one of the works of that composer for you to listen to. That's a pretty snazzy addition!  

There are additional game suggestions that go along with the listening portion--the "extra challenges." This uses the music and has players identify the era of music or the composer of that music.

We tried out another game with these cards--Go Fish! There are enough cards that it makes for a challenging go fish game as well :) 

There are many different ways that this game can be used in a learning by fun setting. I would recommend using it in smaller sets of pairs until players are familiar with the different composers and with the looks of the cards. This might help to overcome any overwhelming feelings brought on by the large numbers of composers and the similar look of the cards (I think I use my visual senses to help me too much when playing matching games!) My daughter is 16 and I am...well, older than 16 hahaha ;) and we got a bit overwhelmed by so many different people. 

I appreciated the fact that one card of each pair gives a little bit of info about the composer, so that when you are playing the game, it is just a natural place to read a little about that person. The more times that you play the game, you begin to remember more about the composer--and if you happen to be studying them in school, you will know and learn and remember even more!

The chart of music of each of the composers is quite an elegant tool to add on to the game. Just a reminder that you might want to preview the videos (I did not view every one of the videos, but at least one featured artwork with nudity...and as it is youtube, there are video suggestions after the video--just something that you might want to watch out for) There's some beautiful music on there!  I discovered some new music to listen to :) Listen to this one: 

Isn't that lovely?  Anyhow, before I go too far about this new-to-me composer, let me get back to the game... :) 

So to sum it up, the game is basically a matching game, with added enhancements of music to accompany it and a bit of information about each of the composers. It is a large game, two decks of cards, with only one match per card (so fifty two pairs). It would go along well with a study of different composers, or as a way to introduce the names of composers. You can definitely scale it down to use with as many pairs as you wish until you are comfortable enough to use one or two decks.

You can learn more about this product by clicking on the link below and reading more folks' reviews of Maestro Mastery--Explore the Composers: