Learn To Play The Piano

A computer game that teaches you to play songs on a keyboard? Hard to imagine, but that’s what this program is designed to do. Piano Wizard is a colorful, fun program that will appeal mostly to children, but it’s geared for anyone who wants to learn to play the piano without having to learn to read music first.

The Premier version of the program is available with an included keyboard, or you can buy the software alone to use with any MIDI keyboard. Either way, Piano Wizard makes it easy to get started. Just install the keyboard, attach the included color-coded stickers to the keys and install the Piano Wizard software. To play the game just choose the screen background and icon to use (the selection includes dinosaurs, bugs, a rock band, concert hall and more), then select the type of music, such as children’s, hymns, classical or folk, and click on the tune to you want play. A colorful keyboard with two lines through it appears at the top of the screen, and the character icon you chose begins to move up the screen toward a colored-coded screen key. When the icon appears between the two bars on the screen keyboard, press your keyboard key marked with the color that matches the icon, and you hear that note. Do the same when the next note appears. Keep playing those notes, and pretty soon you’re playing a tune. That simple.

You can easily make the icon move faster or slower, switch to a different tune, or repeat any tune as many times as you want. You can also play the right hand only, left hand only or both hands. Add finger numbering to the notes or note names if you want, or just stay with the matching colors. If the selection of music included with the program isn’t to your liking, download MIDI music from the Internet for more variety or to learn a special favorite.

The backgrounds and icons are colorful and appealing (there’s even one that’s actually musical notes), and you can change to a different background at any time. Since you’re likely to choose music you know, you probably know the tempo, but the icons leave spaces where beats are held and the like so that players get a sense of how the tune is to be played by watching the screen images. After you play a tune, there’s a round of applause, and a "score" appears on screen to show how many correct notes you hit.

You can change the on-screen keyboard so that it’s displayed in a vertical position on the side of the screen, mimicking notes written on a staff. There’s also a selection of 16 categories of instruments (sound effects, percussion, guitar, brass, ethnic and the like) and eight types of instruments in each category. Switch to any of these selections to hear the music played with that instrument. It’s great fun to play a tune using the guitar or percussion instruments or any of the others that create your favorite type of sound. Play from the selections of included music or play your own tunes and watch your icons "Jam."

Options are available to ease the learning process. For example, you can make the tempo slower and/or stretch the spacing between icons so that fewer icons are seen at any one time. Once you get comfortable with the selection, you can then start increasing the tempo until you get up to speed. A metronome is available to help you keep time for your selection, and you can drop out the color so you have to rely on the key position on the keyboard or key note. You can also turn off the display of beat lines, background image, scores and color and control volume.

To further help you improve your playing skills, you may enjoy the series of "Challenges" that include Legato, where you hold a note for the correct full count. There’s also a Kids’ Page that has four interactive games, including Piano Wizard, Noggn, Memory and Jigsaw Game, each offering a twist on music education and fun.

Piano Wizard makes leaning music a game and avoids the studying of notes and reading music and all that goes with traditional piano learning. It is a colorful, lively and fun way to be introduced to music and to play tunes easily and without having to spend time learning to read music first. Since most children today are more likely to play a computer game than to play the piano, this program offers a good way to include music in those games. With some guidance, children are likely to learn to play simple tunes and then progress to reading music and perhaps creating their own music by using Piano Wizard. But we think it will take time for either children or adults to move beyond the basics, and that takes a certain amount of focus and repetition to move forward.

That said, Piano Wizard is appealing and easy to use, and the level of enjoyment and learning will depend largely on the child or adult and their motivation and personal preferences.

A tutorial is available to show you how to use Piano Wizard, and installation instructions are complete and easy to follow. The program is available for PC and Mac users from Allegro Rainbow, www.pianowizard.com; Premier package, which includes a 49-key M-Audio MIDI keyboard, $199.95 or Premier software only (you provide your own MIDI keyboard) with MIDI cable and keyboard stickers, $139.95.

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