Piano Wizard Premier With 49E Keystation Order Now

this is coolest thing i ever bought. i wrote an email to my sister to propose that she get one and just thought i would paste it here for anyone interested.

also, i think this is great for all ages, but our discussion was related to training for 4-year old kids.

here is my email...

hey,

i am just writing to try to sell you on piano wizard, which i mentioned to you once over the summer.
i had one delivered to us in switzerland after our trip and **** (my 4-yr old kid) has learned a lot from this game.
i could imagine getting one for ***(her 4-yr old kid) for christmas.
but i would need to hear your feelings about it first.
you can learn a lot about it by looking at [...]
for us, it really has been a fun and easy way for **** (my 4-yr old kid) to learn piano.
here are some extra info for you to know about...

what she learned in just 8 weeks...
1. the first 2 songs used one octave of black keys. she learned to play 3 notes with her right hand and 2 with the left.
2. next few songs used different parts of the keyboard but still black keys only
3. next few songs introduced chords (left hand ocasionally playing 1 note at same time as right hand)
4. next few songs introduced hand movement (so she has to move one hand or the other to a new position)
5. next few songs introduced her to playing on the white keys. (much harder because you can not feel them as easily)
there are 88 songs left to go in the training set and i was easily able to load up a song of my choosing (yesterday by the beatles) after downloading an mdi file from the internet (similar to mp3 file)

at some point i switched her to level 2, where notes are going horizontally instead of vertically. this is a major step, but it is manageable. i think it constitutes huge progress on the path to reading music in standard notation.

i think some piano instruction does not introduce rhythm in the beginning, but of course this design makes it impossible to play out of rhythm (the keys are silent unless you press the one that is correct for the given moment of the song)

so, i generally think this is one of the coolest things i ever bought in my life.

however, in all honesty, there are a few cautions i should mention.

1. i can not walk away for more than 90 seconds while she is practicing. a few clicks are needed to set the tempo and select the song and after about 90 seconds it is usually time to do another mouse click on something so i am always needed to be there.

2. a large tv monitor might be needed. we somehow had a large tv/monitor that was not in use, so i arranged a dedicated space for her keyboard to be directly facing this large screen. if you use a tiny monitor or or a large monitor that is too far away, it might not be such a great experience. (and putting the keyboard up on your desk would not be correct hand positioning.)

3. before we did piano lessons in the morning, i tried to teach **** (my 4-yr old kid) about telling time. we used a kumon workbook every morning for 20 minutes and she really hated it. now, i tell her every morning... "are you ready for a fun lesson? do you prefer to practice piano? or clocks?" well, she happily chooses piano and feels lucky to get to do that. the constant threat of showing her some clocks again is really boosting her enthusiasm for piano. without this, i am not sure she would be so thrilled. (sorry to diss kumon here because i like them in gneral. but putting a 4-yr old in front of any age-7 workbook is going to be punishment)

so,.. you should check the web site and decide if you are a believer or not, if someone would have time to do this with ***(her 4-yr old kid) or not, and if you have space for a monitor or not.

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