USB Teach Me Piano Kit

by Turtle Beach

Product Features

• Complete piano instruction system from the convenience of your PC
• 6 sections with 150+ interactive lessons; covers range of keyboarding skills
• Intuitive and fun learning environment; real-time feedback; record songs
• Navigate to any section from Piano Room; print sheet music; progress reports
• USB MIDI interface connects electronic keyboard to desktop or laptop PC

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B000B6OBQM
• Item model number: VTS-3522-100
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 25, 2005
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,959 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #65 in Software > Video & Music > Software > Instruction

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Learning to play a musical instrument is a rewarding and creative skill that can enrich the lives of you and your family, but finding the time to learn isn't easy.

If you've always wished you could play the piano, or you've let your skills get rusty over the years, you'll appreciate the convenience of interactive lessons that are ready whenever you have the time.

Features:

• USB MIDI interface
• Interactive lessons
• Print sheet music
• Progress charts

Piano Room lets you navigate to any section
The Piano Room is the main screen from where you access all of the programs in Teach Me Piano. You can instantly jump to any section of the teaching system by clicking on the item in the menu list.

Hardware that gives you an advantage
Unlike software-only packages, the Teach Me Piano Kit is a complete solution that includes a USB MIDI interface--an essential part of any PC music learning system. The USB MIDI interface connects your electronic keyboard to a desktop or laptop PC to provide real-time feedback as you learn. Hearing the notes play on your music keyboard as you watch them on your PC screen provides an intuitive and fun environment for learning how to play the easy way!

Piano Lessons teach you how to play
Divided into six sections with more than 150 lessons, the Lessons section covers a full spectrum of keyboard-playing skills, including notation, rhythm and timing, finger positions, key signatures, time signatures, scales, and chords. You’ll learn how to play more than 75 popular songs and proper playing technique.

Recording Station
Record songs on your PC the way it’s done in a real recording studio. Recording Station lets you combine digital audio and MIDI tracks to create musical arrangements that include synthesizers, voices, acoustic instruments, and other real-world sounds. Record from any MIDI compatible keyboard or load one of the many MIDI compositions included and experiment by re-orchestrating the music.

Progress Report shows you how you’re doing
Several students can maintain their own progress reports as they learn to play, so every member of your family can start at a different level and progress at their own pace.

Song Book lets you perform what you’ve learned
Easily access the songs you’ve learned, by title, style, composer, or level of difficulty. Choose a song and go either to the Trainer Screen to practice or to the Performance Screen to play with background accompaniment. You can also print the music to play later on, or import your own MIDI files into the Songbook to perform them as well.

Musician’s Reference introduces you to theory
This section describes musical notation, definitions, and musical terms, to serve as a handy reference guide.

SoundCheck helps you set up your music system
If you need help setting up your music system, SoundCheck is the perfect tool. From here, you can check the operation of your MIDI keyboard, microphone, audio playback, and more. There’s even a video lesson on how to connect your MIDI keyboard to your PC!

Product Description

Learning to play a musical instrument is a rewarding and creative skill that can enrich the lives of you and your family but finding the time to learn isn't easy.If you've always wished you could play the piano or you've let your skills get rusty over the years you'll appreciate the convenience of interactive lessons that are ready whenever you have the time. Key features: USB MIDI Interface Interactive Lessons Progress Charts. Includes: USB MIDI Cable Teach Me Piano" software

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but was painful setup process, February 21, 2006

By 

Lev - See all my reviews

This review is from: USB Teach Me Piano Kit (CD-ROM)

I wanted a usb midi cable, since my new machine doesn't have a game port and I had been using a gameport midi cable to connect my sythesizer to my computer. This piano kit seemed to fit the bill. And, I liked that for about the cost of a cable I get the piano instruction software for my son basically included.

Before buying, I verified with Voyetra that this cable works both with mac and pc, since I have a PC desktop and Mac laptop. I didn't want a PC only cable. (Mac OSX has built-in compatible USB drivers for this Turtle Beach brand cable.)

Unfortunately, I spent over half a day trying combinations of connecting the cable between 2 different synths and my two computers... I get either computers to send data to control either synth, but got flaky MIDI IN data coming into the computers from every combination. It would send either random data or only "note off" commands but not "note on".

Eventually I gave up, suspecting the cable rather than my synths, computers, or application software. So I emailed voyetra tech support (they have no phone support), who replied on the next business day suggesting I download and install the firmware upgrade from their website. The upgrade worked easily, and now everything works great. (Note that the firmware upgrade needs to be run on a PC not a Mac.)

The included piano instruction software is good, and my son enjoys it, but it uses a lower screen resolution, leading me to believe that it was not written recently. But it has no problem running under XP.

Overall it's a nice product for the money, but the install was frustrating. You might need to know a bit about your synth, MIDI, and how to troubleshoot -- unless you get lucky.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Works as described..., May 22, 2007

By 

Michal P. Todorovic (Long Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: USB Teach Me Piano Kit (CD-ROM)

Using the software and hardware included in this package I was able to connect my Yamaha keyboard to my computer, and use the software to begin to learn to play the piano.

Teach Me Piano is an older software program (and it shows) that competently teaches piano playing. There are videos to show proper hand positions, exercises to teach you to play, and evaluations of your performance. While this is an older program, it works well on my more modern laptop and is quite good.

One note, the cabling works as all standard MIDI cabling does; you plug the "out" cable into the "in" on the piano, and vice versa. If you plug the "out" into the "out" it won't work. I've heard people whine about this in reviews, but this has been part of the MIDI standard for decades and is just the way that it works.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Bad software, May 15, 2007

By 

Matthew T. Haley "kryogenic" (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: USB Teach Me Piano Kit (CD-ROM)

Despite its age, I was willing to give "Teach Me" a shot. I worked dutifully through a few dozen lessons, but then as soon as multiple notes had to be played simultaneously, the software was unable to detect two notes at a time. I have the latest sound drivers and everything. Tech support was useless too.