Piano Wizard

© 2005 Allegro Multimedia, Inc.
$150, Windows XP, Windows 98 (requires a MIDI keyboard), Mac
Teaches: piano, music, audio discrimination, rhythm, notation, creating music
CTR Rating: 72%

CTR Review

Note: See I Can Play Piano by Fisher-Price, released August 2006. Also note that a Macintosh version was released in 2007. Consisting of a four-octave MIDI keyboard, a USB MIDI cable, software and a set of color-coded keys, this piano tutor is designed for the very first exposure to the piano. It also introduces the relationship between notes and musical notation. The program is like Dance Dance Revolution, only with a piano keyboard instead of a dance mat. The idea is to follow a moving stream of color coded objects as they float across your computer screen and then hit the piano key precisely when the object crosses a marked sweet spot zone. The better you do, the higher your score and the better the song sounds. The setup and menu systems are rather clunky—with menus that require reading—certainly not designed for a preschooler. There's a forced registration system that requires you to supply your address and Email in order to unlock all the songs. The included keyboard (an M-Audio Keystation 49e Mobile USB MIDI controller) works easily -- just plug it in, and Windows recognized it. By the way, this keyboard also works well with Apple's GarageBand. The $150 question is-- can Piano Wizard teach a younger child, such as preschooler, to play piano? I'm not sure. The color matching approach is counterintuitive to listening, in other words, you can get so wrapped up visually matching the colors that you forget about the song. This could lead to a debate on piano pedagogy, but one idea is that any child who has the innate talent to peck out simple songs would soon outgrow a color coded visual crutch. The ear will soon take over, and if it doesn't, it is likely that the poor child doesn't have any business playing a musical instrument in the first place. The other issue is with the skills needed to play any instrument. With the piano, hand placement, scales and arpeggios are required -- to train the hands. These are not covered by this package. There's no doubt that the program can introduce the general idea that the piano keyboard = musical notes. It is not clear if it can teach the piano, however.