Customer Reviews

My Piano

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found this to be a great product in teaching kids to learn to play. I am 30 with no music abilities and I have learned to play part of a song in the first few mins. My daughter is 4 and she loves to watch and play the games at the end of each lesson. Then she goes to the keyboard and tries. I did not expect her to learn since it is recommended for age 6 and over, but the interest is there and she will learn someday.

I have Windows XP and no blank screens

I bought this for my 8 yr old dd. She really enjoys it. It;s great for beginners and keeps her attention. The only drawback is being on the computer, but I knew that when I purchased it. My 6 yr old son also enjoys using this program. We haven't used the option where you can plug your keyboard in yet.

I started teaching my 5 year old daughter piano using the Faber My First Piano Adventure books a few months ago, and I saw this and thought it would be a fun addition to our lessons. We just used it for the first time yesterday, but she REALLY likes it so far and could play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" just after using it this one day. We hooked it up to our new Casio Celviano digital piano and as she played, it would give her a score and tell her what she did wrong (played a note too late, played the wrong first note, etc.). At first this disappointed her because she wanted to score 100% but I encouraged her that that was the point of the score...so she will learn from her mistakes and get better scores as she practices more and makes progress. I also explained how great it is that this scores her on her rhythm so someday she could play with other instruments or accompany singers or choirs if she wants to because there are a lot of people who can play the right notes but if you can't play in the right timing, then you can't play with other people. My daughter liked the software, including the talking piano, the instructional videos, and listening to the audio samples. I also like that you can print the screen so I could print "Mary Had a Little Lamb" so she can practice even when I'm not right there with the computer. My daughter is in kindergarten and is learning to read pretty well, but even if she was older I wouldn't turn any kid loose with learning to play piano. They could learn too many bad habits with their posture, hand positions, fingering, etc. (things the software can't score) if there's not an adult sitting with them to correct them, and those habits would be hard to break in the future and could prevent them from really excelling at piano in years to come. So, I did sit with my daughter during it, but I was planning to do that since I'm her teacher and it was our lesson yesterday. I would recommend this software as it brought a new level of fun to learning.

for the price it cant be beat

the songs are great for a child, the instruction is a bit wierd until you get used to it but its great

we are using it with wii rock band keyboard and a midi to usb cable also bought from amazon

this will provide hours upon hours of quality time

This version of My Piano is made for Power PC (older) Macs. So on a newer Intel-based mac it requires the optional Rosetta component to be installed. That works on OSX 10.6 and lower but Apple dropped support for Rosetta on OSX Lion. There may be a new version coming avail if you check the emedia website. The Windows version should work on all versions of windows but I haven't tried it yet.

Can't really evaluate the software since it is not compatible with the version of Mac OS that I am running (v10.7 Lion). When I try to run it, I get the following message: "You can't open the application eMedia My Piano because PowerPC applications are no longer supported."

The disk is dated 2009. Perhaps there is a more recent version that I should have purchased.

This program is very difficult to use for younger children. I would not recommend it. Plus when I returned it, I only got a partial refund of $5. I didn't even do anything to it.

This software is okay, but not as great as I thought it would be. I've always wanted to learn to play and have a background in choir, so I know music already. It's been great for teaching me piano. However, I was also hoping to have my 5 year old start using it as well. I liked that it offered feedback for wrong notes, etc. The problem is, you have to be able to fully read to use it. It reads part of the lesson to you, but not all of it, so you have to look at the screen and read the rest of the instructions/information. I realize it says it's for ages 6 and up, but you know sometimes things can be used by competent kids who are younger. Not this product. In fact, I think it even went a bit fast for me (a 31 year old with a bit of a music background). It says you can go back and practice things if you haven't mastered them yet, but I don't think a kid would really catch that. This definitely needs to be used with adult supervision so you can guide them along.

Another thing I wasn't overjoyed about is how much I had to go back and forth between the keyboard and the computer/mouse. It's a bit awkward.

Overall, I think it does a good job at teaching (I haven't gone through the whole program yet). But it's definitely something you can't just turn your kids lose with and expect them not to get frustrated. So be ready to spend a lot of time sitting with them and guiding them through it. Good quality time :-)