Musician (Videopac game)

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Cover of manual
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Cover of manual

This is cartridge number 31 in the official Magnavox/Philips line of games for the Philips Videopac.

Musician is not a game. As its manual says, it is "something very special". It came in a cardboard box roughly double the size of a standard Videopac game box, containing a keyboard overlay in the style of a piano keyboard; the cartridge, in a standard Videopac box with a single sheet where the manual would usually be; and a landscape-format manual, over double the size of a standard game manual. Interestingly, the manual is all in English, so presumably a different manual was printed for each language area it was marketed in(Videopac manuals were usually multi-lingual). This, along with the overlay and the custom box, must have made Musician rather expensive item at the time.

The purpose of the set is to turn your Videopac into a music keyboard, it supports recording and editing sequences of up to 81 notes, although there is no way to save apart from writing your composition down on music manuscript. This product is clearly aimed at people who can or are learning to play piano-type instruments, although the Videopac's single sound voice makes it impossible to play chords. In the manual there are the following pieces of sheet music: