The PIANO WIZARD by Allegro - a fun video game that helps you learn to play the piano.
It's been all over several news programs and reported on in the press. The Piano Wizard by Allegro is one of the best musical instrument games ever and simply a great piece of piano software.
I have heard nothing but good reviews about the simple new video game that helps virtually ANYONE learn to play piano! The Piano Wizard game is probably more attractive to children, but there is definitely huge benefits even for adults to use the software.
When you first open the Piano Wizard box, you will notice a nice, brand new USB adaptable keyboard from M-Audio. All you need to set up your keyboard with your computer is the USB cable that comes with the package. You don't need a power adaptor or even a midi cable, but the keyboard does have ports for both of them. The free keyboard is a great value itself, and also comes with color-coded stickers attached to the keys, to coincide with the Piano Wizard game. Each musical note corresponds to a different color, helping piano beginners to learn musical comprehension in an easy way.
The Piano Wizard game uses a progressive style of teaching how to play piano. The first step has the player learning by coordinating the different notes and keys by using the color-coded stickers on the keyboard. The most basic game level has notes scrolling up the screen, and the player is required to press the correct key whenever the note hits a certain bar. This makes it easier to get used to linking notes and their respective colors.
On the next level, the alignment can be flipped so that notes will scroll horizontally across the screen. This level is a bit more difficult, but allows the player to begin to read piano music in the traditional method of note representation. The third level is even more difficult, and requires the player to use an even more traditional style of reading music and playing the piano, but the notes are still colored to match the keys on the keyboard. For the final stage, the colors are removed and students are taught how to actually read piano music in the correct form. This progressive style of learning to play piano is one of the best attributes of the Piano Wizard software.
The Piano Wizard game comes with many MIDI songs that can be played on the keyboard. The songs included are a good mix of difficulty levels for piano players of all skill levels. Perhaps the most attractive feature of this piano software is that you can download any MIDI song from the internet, and play it on the Piano Wizard! It doesn't even have to be a piano song! Even if the song you download has up to 10 different instruments in it, you can still play it on the Piano Wizard. Virtually any song you can think of!
The game is highly customizable, with many configurable options for visuals, skill requirements, and song structure. The keyboard itself is very customizable with many options, as you can see in the link I posted earlier on the page.
So to sum it up, this game provides an exceptional learning experience, and it is exceptionally fun! The Piano Wizard is a high quality piece of piano software that has been superbly designed.
Allegro Rainbow offers two different Piano Wizard packages, one that includes the game, a USB/Midi cable, and stickers, or the "Premier" package which includes all of the above items as well as the M-Audio keyboard. I strongly recommend the "Premier" package as the best deal, considering you get the M-Audio keyboard included. Click Here for Piano Wizard