Better Than Private Lessons?
Years ago, we might have said that the best way for a young child to learn to play the piano was with private piano lessons. But when you consider that in the most elementary sense, music is simply playing the correct note at the correct time, then you have to ask yourself if private lessons are really necessary for any young child to master this fundamental skill?

No Drudgery
More often than not, beginning piano lessons, with their unfamiliar and insipid tunes and endless hours of mind-numbing practice, can drain every ounce of enthusiasm from your eager learner. Piano Wizard addresses both those issues. First, because learning to play the piano requires hours of practice, Piano Wizard has replaced the drudgery of typical piano practice with arcade-game drills and immediate feedback. When your child finishes playing a song, applause sounds, and he gets a percentage score of how many correct notes he played. This makes piano practice less like torture and more like gaming fun. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to save user histories, so scores are not retained; however, testers tell me that is no deterrent to trying to best their last scores.

Unlimited Music Selection
Not only are the games enjoyable and the competition extremely motivating, for most children the option of being able to choose the music they want to learn will always have instant appeal. So secondly, Piano Wizard includes 200 songs in categories including children's songs, folk songs, holiday songs, folk songs, hymns, and easy classics. And every Piano Wizard purchased from Timberdoodle Co will also include a CD-Rom with an additional 100 Gospel songs, a $100 extra value for free. Not only that, but parents can download MIDI tracks off the Internet. The Piano Wizard software reads the song and automatically renders the game for teaching the new song, instantly creating a new music lesson every time. Amazing! Unlike other educational games that have limited options, Piano Wizard is virtually unlimited -- your child will never run out of fresh material to practice!

Includes a Rugged Keyboard
Included with the Piano Wizard software is a very sturdy and well-designed forty-nine key piano keyboard (without velocity sensitivity, to keep your cost to a minimum) built to stand up to the rigors of repeated lessons and practice. The keyboard is large (31.5 inches wide x 8.5 inches deep), so you'll need room in front of your computer to set it up. While there is no speaker built into the keyboard, the Piano Wizard software allows the user to play through your computer's speakers and power the keyboard, as well, all through the USB port of your computer. The Piano Wizard Premiere package also comes with a USB cable and software CD-ROM. The software works on both PC- and Mac-based computers. Timberdoodle's version also includes five Piano Wizard Academy bonus lessons especially designed to show parents how to use the Piano Wizard to teach piano.

Much More Than a Game
While children may initially view Piano Wizard as just a fun computer game, the outcome is a program that gets them to practice again and again, guiding them through progressively difficulty levels of reading music and fine-motor skills of playing the piano. Widely used throughout schools and homes across the country to teach young children music, Piano Wizard is an effective course that produces measurable results.

Learn more about Piano Wizard's four-step approach to teaching you to read music.

The Piano Wizard Method combines the way in which people naturally learn, with the basic components of piano playing, to create a stress free, fun experience that consistently proves successful for both children and adults. This game based method teaches Tempo, Timing, Fingering, Note Names and Reading of Notation while practicing with either right, left or both hands. Our method advances the student from playing a video game to reading music.

Step 1, Play the Game: Just hit the game objects at the right time and you’re playing a song! The game objects rise from the bottom to the top along a corresponding colored line that matches the color code of the key being used. The key is pressed when the game object reaches the matching key of the piano graphic at the top of the page and the game object changes as the note is played.

Step 2, Rotate the Game: The game rotates and you begin to see how written music is organized. This allows the student to quickly adapt to the horizontal nature of music notation and assists in coordination by keeping the right hand corresponding to the game objects on the top of the screen and the left on the bottom.

Step 3, Play Colored Notes: Game characters become color-coded notes on a musical staff, taking you into the world of real musical notation. Notes and rhythm become second nature. This transition allows the student to keep the same key matching color scheme while learning musical notation.

Step 4, Read Real Music: The colored notes change to black on a musical staff, making the transition to reading actual musical notation fun and effortless! The student is now playing and reading music.

The Tempo of the game is adjustable and can be set to the student's skill level.

Timing is learned by pressing keys at the appropriate time while the symbols are between the green and red lines on the piano key graphic at the top of the page. This is also adjustable to the student's skill level.

The finger numbering option places the number of the finger of each hand on the game object (or note) as it moves toward the piano keys graphic. This allows the student to learn proper fingering for each key as they learn new songs.

The Note Name option places the name of the note being played next to the game object (or note symbol) as it moves towards the piano keys graphic. This allows the student to learn the name of the note as they press the corresponding key.

The most important aspect of the Piano Wizard Method™ is that the student is rewarded with applause at the completion of each level, regardless of score. This makes learning a positive, fun experience.

There is also a Free Play mode, in which you can choose your instrument's sounds, including a drum, woodwinds, a harmonica, guitars, and pianos, plus some others your child may never have heard before. In this mode, he uses the keyboard to play whatever he wishes and is not restricted to any particular song choices.

Step 5, Play the Piano: Take it to a real piano with the Piano Wizard Academy! This is playing from the sheet music at a real piano. This is where the true strength of the Piano Wizard Academy is found, taking it to the piano with the “Art of Music”: Phrasing, Posture, Dynamics and Technique. The Tutorial DVD and Songbook lessons guide you through the process.