At long last, I'm finally writing about Piano Wizard. Piano Wizard is simply a video game method of learning to play piano. We bought this for the kids about two years ago and I had music scheduled as part of the kids' school day. I took five years of piano lessons in elementary school and sang until I graduated high school, so I felt quite confident in my ability to teach my children music. Unfortunately, Piano Wizard did not fit into my preconceived notion of teaching music. I felt like I had to spend a lot of time getting to know the program so I could set up lesson times and figure out how I could monitor how well each kid was playing and keep track of their progress. Like that was ever going to happen! Plus, I was hung up on teaching the language of music reading-a sure way to kill their interest in music and make it just another lesson! So, the keyboard sat to the side of the computer table, collecting dust and spider webs... until this summer.
When I was nesting before Lula was born, I pulled the eyesore out of the corner and set the program up for the kids per their request. This time, I showed them how to start the program on the computer and set them loose. I was done trying to be in control of their learning and just wanted to see how "Squirt did flying solo." It was summer vacation, I was getting ready to have a baby, and I wanted nothing to do with micromanaging their time. The kids played their way to learning piano in a way I could never imagine...
The idea is quite simple, yet it is an ingenious trick. Each key on the keyboard has its own color. All the C's are plain, D's light blue, E's orange, etc. All the black keys have dark colors and the white keys are light. The first level is played like the picture above. As the object colored to match the key approaches the top, you have to press the key to make the object "explode" on the picture of the keyboard on the screen. The backgrounds and objects are customizable; there is a space background, a concert hall, a scene of dinosaurs, etc. The whole point of the first level is to get the player familiar to where the colored keys are located in a horizontal manner. As soon as the first song is mastered, the player can either move up in difficulty visually or try a new song using the same level. This is about the time I gave up trying to schedule music lessons two years ago-which way should a person go?
The second level is the same as the first as far as objects, colors, and background, but the objects now move from the right side of the screen to the left side of the screen. You can better see the two lines on the colored keys that show when the player is supposed the hit the key to explode the object. The purpose of this level is to switch the horizontal placement of the keys to the vertical alignment of the notes on a staff in the player's mind. It's quite brilliant!
In the third level of difficulty, the player is now reading notes. They are colored, but they are note shaped. And predictably, the fourth level changes the notes and keyboard on the edge to black and white and the player reads the standard music staff. When the song is over in all levels, you get a score based on note accuracy.
This is the way my kids used the program: They played several of the easier songs on the first level and then tried them on the second and third. They would then pick a few more songs and learn them on the first level and work their way up again. They considered a score of 100% "beating the level" and would then advance to the next song. After a few weeks, the boys felt comfortable learning new songs on the third level, but they also liked the fun screens so would go back just for fun. They didn't worry about proper fingering; they used whatever finger they felt like (which bothered me-adding finger numbers is an option in the advanced mode, but they aren't ready for that feature yet). I did try to show Shane how much easier it is to play Fur Elise (modified for the game) if he walked his fingers like a spider. If I caught anyone just banging all the keys at once so they could get a perfect score, they would lose their turn for the rest of the day (that was mostly Evie and Fiona)!
Okay, so what? So they've memorized some songs and can play them on a computer keyboard with colored stickers. Does it translate to REAL piano playing? Maybe. It certainly created an interest in pulling out our small keyboards so the kids waiting for their turn to play had something to do. Ian and Shane were able to play the songs they learned in Piano Wizard on the keyboards without ever having to learn the names of the notes, what octaves, keys, or time signatures are, or why notes come in different shapes-and they weren't dependent on the colored stickers either. Ian has even pulled out my old music books and is trying to read music all on his own. They also asked questions- Why do you say that Mary Had a Little Lamb and Merrily We Roll Along are the same songs when we play them using different keys? What does the rest of Ode to Joy sound like? Why does this song sound so sad? What does this mark over the notes in your music book mean? I wrote a song, can you write the notes down for me so I can read them?
I also enjoyed playing around with Piano Wizard. I could not play a single song if the colors were turned on. After sight reading music for years, the colors totally threw me off. The kids were appropriately impressed when I would play a song for the first time on the fourth level and score higher than 70%!
To wrap this up, two summers ago the kids would ask, "Can I play Nintendo?" This summer, I constantly hear, "Can I play Piano Wizard?" YES! Just plug in the headphones, okay?
