Piano Lesson Reviews - Piano Wizard for Children

Music Wizard Group

$49.95 - $199.95

PC/Mac

30 Day Money Back Guarantee
If problem, email author, get refund and keep materals!

3.9 / 4.0 - Top Pick For Kids!

The Materials You Get with Piano Wizard

As mentioned above, we feel this program is great especially for children who want to learn piano.  The materials provided with the program give them a chance to have fun while learning.  There are a lot of program options with Piano Wizard so it's difficult to tell you every combination of features offered but we have listed the main ones for you below:

• Piano Wizard Premier Software
  • Software is designed for kids to have fun while learning - we were impressed with how well it works!
  • Have your kids playing video games that will give them REAL skills as opposed to guitar hero and other similar video games
• M-Audio MIDI Piano Keyboard
  • An actual small keyboard to learn on, save money by not having to purchase a full piano to start
  • Comes with a USB Cable to Connect to Computer and Use with the Learning Software
• Stickers that are color coded to make learning easier
• Great Library of DVDs to Choose From
• Great Library of Lesson Videos to Use
• Great Library of Books and eBooks to Suppliment the Videos
• Wide Variety of MIDI Songs to Play Along With
  • Your can download thousands of popular songs from the internet and load them into the sotware
  • It's always easier to learn songs that you actually like!

How the Program Works

This program is set up to start from the absolute beginner stage with children using a video game designed to teach them to read music.  Below we have laid out the four steps used in the video game so you can see how a child's learning would evolve.

Step 1:  This is the most basic step of play and consists of an image of a piano keyboard shown horizontally on the top of the computer screen.  Once a practice song is selected, rising color coded bubbles move upwards toward the piano keyboard image.  When the color bubble reaches a key on the keyboard, this signals when the note should be played and the child should hit the corresponding note on their keyboard.  Every time they get the note and timing correct they earn a point and advance to the next level.  It is sort of similar to the video game 'Tetris' which many kids love to play.  Here, they will learn piano while having fun with the game.

Step 2: This works the same as step one except the piano keyboard image is shown vertically not horizontally and is on the left hand side of the computer screen.  The colored bubbles flow from right to left just as music would be read off of a staff.  This gives the child a very basic understanding of how music is read.

Step 3:  This continues with the setup in step two except now the colored bubbles are colored musical notes that are moving along an actual staff of music.  At this point, the child will be reading notes on a staff of music (still with the help of the color coding).

Step 4:  The color from the bubbles is now removed and the child is left only with the notes.  At this point they are really reading music and playing it as they go.  Get them doing this with their friends and they'll have a friendly competition going on with both of them learning to read music! 

Once the game is learned, the student has an entire library or DVDs, CDs and music books to continue with.  The thought is that once the student knows the basics of reading music, learning more advanced techniques will be much easier and less frustrating.  If you took lessons as a kid you know how frustrating it can be trying to learn more advanced piano songs before getting the basics under your belt. 

About the Creator

This online piano course was developed and created by Chris Salter who holds degrees in in Linguistics, Music and a masters degree in Musicology.  The Piano Wizard Academy was founded by Professor Don Deattie along with his partner Delayna and is a program developed to target piano students 3 years of age and older.  Due to its success, the program is now widely used throughout schools and homes across the country to teach kids music.  This is one of the reasons we were so impressed with this program for children seeking to learn the piano.  The fact that it has been adopted by music schools to use in their curriculum only solidifies that this program produces real results.

Skill Level

This program is best suited for beginners and intermediate level players.  As mentioned, it is best targeted for children between the ages 3 and 12.  We've found that it is also widely used by piano teachers and parents who want to help their children learn piano.

Customer Support

Piano Wizard has a useful FAQ section on their site for basic questions.  If you require more assistance, you can also email them directly.  The program comes with required manuals and driver downloads needed for your computer.  Set up is simple but there is help if you need it.

Pricing and Promotions

The pricing for this product really depends on the package you choose.  The range can be anywhere from $49.95 - $199.95+.  You can choose the desired number of books you want, DVDs you want, CDs you want or opt out of the MIDI keyboard if you'd prefer.  All of these will affect the overall price of the product.  To learn about specific pricing as well as current promotions, you can visit their product information page by clicking on the image below:

Guarantees

Piano Wizard offers a 30 day money back guarantee.  If you are not completely satisfied with the product, simply return the course materials for a full refund.

Ordering the program is simple and safe and is monitored by ScanAlert/Hacker Safe and Thawte to ensure secure processing.  To see the product order form, click here

The Lesson Rating Conclusion

The real selling point of this program is its ability to teach children.  Simply put, our staff has concluded that this is the best online piano lesson program for children. 

The key to it's ability to get through to kids is in the online games designed to teach the introductory musical concepts.  Games are set up to hit certain goals before moving onto the next level.  If kids spent their time learning this game instead of Guitar Hero or 'shoot-em-up' video games, they would become quite good at piano and possess a very practical skill to use for their entire lifetime.  We've seen other software available for kids to learn piano but none are as effective as this one.  It is very obvious that the creators had a background in teaching children and understand what it takes to capture and keep a child's interest. 

This program has our High LessonRating Score of 3.9 out of 4.0