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Important:
Before purchasing
read Buying Tips.
Tips section provides instructions on how to get
the course for almost 25% off the almost price! |
Varies depending on preferences. A
typical selection contains:
Piano Wizard Premier Software
M-Audio MIDI Piano Keyboard
USB Cable
Color Coded Stickers
Multiple DVDs
Multiple Videos
Multiple Books or eBooks
Numerous MIDI Songs
Beginner , Intermediate ,
Advanced ,
Professional.
Mostly for Children, ages 3 to 13.
Also for Parents and Grandparents, and for Piano teachers teaching
Children.
Compatible with PC and Mac.
Varies
depending on package purchased (for example:
with or without piano, number of DVDs, printed books or eBooks,
etc.)
HUGE discount possible - see Buying
Tips, below.
Lowest price is available from the
publisher, by clicking here
 .
No Risk Order,
Full
Guarantee.
The Piano Wizard shopping cart is
monitored daily by ScanAlert/Hacker Safe. The ordering process is
straightforward and clear, and orders are processed over a secure
and encrypted connection. Security and encryption are handled by
Thawte, a leader in the field. It doesn't get better than that,
and order and credit-card details are very safe and secure
Piano Wizard offers a 30-days, No questions asked money back
guarantee. If you are not 100% satisfied, just return the course and
receive a full refund. If return is due to a technical problem (very
rare) they also cover the shipping.
This is our way of doing business.
Two thumbs up!
Course
Creator Bio:
Our grade: Excellent.
Piano Wizard software and course developer
Chris Salter has undergraduate degrees in both Music and
Linguistics, and a master's degree in Musicology from UCLA.
Professor Don Beattie
and Delayna Beattie, developers of the Piano Wizard Academy courses,
have appeared in music programs, performances and festivals
throughout the U.S. and internationally.
Don is in his 29th year as Director of
Piano Pedagogy at the School of Music of Southern Illinois
University.
Delayna has been a music
teacher for 25 years. They've instructed their Beethoven Goes to
School” music assembly programs to thousands of school children
throughout the USA.
Course Description:
At the heart of this course is a
(non-violent) video game specifically written to make children love
learning to read music and to play the piano, instead of hating it
and trying to skip lessons and practice. The concept of using a video
game to teach piano is not unique to Piano Wizard (for example –
check out Piano is
Fun). What is unique, though, are both the level of execution of
the game and how well it performs in actually teaching piano.
The best way to explain this course is
by seeing it in action (videos available
Here by
clicking the click the "see more videos" link).
Following is our description of the course, along with our
notes
(if videos were enough, skip
description and read our opinion Here):
The course uses the piano keyboard to
control the video game. This ensures that your child uses the right
keys to get the desired results in the game, that learning is
intuitive and that it takes place from the first moment the course
is used.
The course is arranged in five
distinct steps, taking the child from complete novice to
intermediate or advanced piano player:
On step 1 a color coded piano
keyboard image is displayed horizontally at the top of the screen. The
child selects a song to practice on, and as the music starts
playing, bubbles matching the piano keys of the song rise up
vertically from the bottom of the screen, till they pass though the notes on
the keyboard image and exit the screen. The child's aim is to play the
matching note on the physical keyboard just as the bubble passes the
note on the keyboard image shown on the screen, which is when the
note should actually play in the song. If the child plays the right
note on time, the bubble bursts and the child earns credit points.
As the child does not yet have a grasp of notes and the keyboard at
this stage, the keyboard image and the notes are color coded, and
the keys on the physical piano are similarly coded using adhesive
stickers (durable, washable, and removable). Basically, at this
stage it's play-by-color.
Step 2 is similar, but the
keyboard image on the screen is rotated - displayed vertically at
the left of the screen, with the bubbles moving horizontally from
right to left. This enables understanding how music notation is
written (sheet music), and defines how the right hand should
correspond to the bubbles (and notes) on the top of the screen and
the left hand to those on the bottom.
Step 3 takes this further, by
replacing the bubbles with actual notes traveling horizontally on a
musical staff. Though the notes and keyboard keys are still color
coded, at this stage the student actually starts playing by reading
notes.
On step 4 the child loses the
"training wheels" of color. The notes on the musical staff are now
black, and the child plays solely by reading notes on the staff.
This comes rather easily after step 3 is mastered.
Step 5 is an outgrowth of the
course, intended to take the learning to a real piano, without using
the software. As the student can now read music with no need to use
colored aids, teaching is now performed via excellent DVDs and
songbooks, teaching higher concepts of fingering, posture, playing
by ear and more
advanced technique.
Note that step 5, the culmination of
this course, is available in all "Piano Wizard Academy" packages,
but not in regular Piano-Wizard-only course. We fully recommend
purchasing the Academy packages, as they enable teaching piano to
the next level. They are what actually enable the student to play
well on a real piano after stopping to use the program. Academy DVDs
and lessons provide good tuition not only for children, but also for
teens and adults.
What We Think:
We cannot even start describing how
much children liked this software course, and how well they
progressed using it. It truly amazed us!
Teaching is first rate, and for
children we could not find any real flaws in the product. Learning
is fun, intuitive and results arrive very fast compared to
conventional teaching methods. To children, the course is one
big computer game - a lot of fun, guiding them through progressively
advancing difficulty levels. In fact, the game is a means of getting them to
practice again and again, constantly learning to read music and to
play the piano.
Where the course does lack is
when used for teaching teenagers (ages 14 to 20).
Teenagers and adults will enjoy using the Academy DVDs and books,
but they might find the first two levels of the video game a bit too
calm or "kidsey" for their taste. Clearly the course is intended for
children, and focused around them. However, teenagers can always
turn off the colorful backgrounds, which should make the game more
attractive to them.
Teenagers aside, for children the course is very effective. The game
is fun to use and varied; it enables progressing levels of difficulty; The
software reads any standard MIDI format files, which makes it
extremely flexible: besides hundreds of MIDI songs supplied with the
course, one can download professionally made "fully licensed" pop
songs from the company's online music catalog at WizardTunes.com;
moreover - one can download any number of MIDI songs or tunes (readily
available for free download on the net), and learn how to play them.
The software reads the song, and automatically renders the game for
teaching the new song – generating "bubbles" and staff notes for playing the
music. We find this very powerful.
The "learn by play" nature in steps 1 to 4 matches the way learning
naturally occurs with children. It is much more effective for
children and certainly more fun than "conventional" piano lessons
where learning occurs through frontal tuition and is treated as a
chore. Step 5 (in the Piano Wizard Academy courses) provides high
quality "conventional" teaching, but this only comes after the child
already knows how to play and starts to enjoy playing by its own.
Music is all about hitting the right
note at the "right time - and that's exactly what Piano Wizard
teaches!
This course easily wins our
Editor's Choice award for teaching children how to play the piano.
Adults should prefer a more comprehensive program that will also
enable them to learn advanced items and are less focused on
children. However, for children the course is
unbeatable, and if you are a children's piano teacher, if you
want to teach your children or grandchildren the piano or if you are
a child at heart - this course is for you.
Buying Tips:
-
Until 11/30/2008 Piano Wizard is
offering 10% off their bestselling Academy Family Pack 50
pack. When ordering this product,
enter "MWG08-FAL10" in the shopping cart's Discount Code
field, and once you click the button the price will be
discounted by 10%.
-
Though intended only for the
(excellent) Academy Pack 50, Piano Wizard has mistakenly
applied the discount to ALL products. If you act before they
catch the mistake, you'll be able to get the 10% discount on all
products you buy. When ordering any products, enter "MWG08-FAL10"
in the shopping cart's Discount Code field. Look at the prices
listed for the products and then click the button. As we checked
now, this discounts all prices by 10%.
Product Site:
For more information about Piano
Wizard or if you would like to order the course, click here
 .
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Conclusions
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