The idea of a computer programme designed to teach you to play a keyboard instrument is not all that new in itself and has been around in several guises for a decade or so. Most of the earlier programmes were pretty restricted in their capabilities and all too often truly were more trouble to use than they were worth; later examples, although considerably improved still left much to be desired. All in all, although these programmes did have their merits, on balance they were generally still of limited value. One of the reasons for this, of course, was that the software had to run within the quite narrow restrictions imposed by the specifications of home computers as they were then.
Today even the most basic of home computers is many times more powerful and faster than those of only a few years ago, and, accordingly, considerably more sophisticated software can be designed for them – the net result of this upsurge in technology being that the newer teaching programmes offer an extremely attractive and versatile alternative to other ways of learning to play music.
As someone whose job includes reviewing musical software, I’ve been watching with great interest how the newer software is shaping up against its predecessors, but it is not until now that I’ve come across a programme that really does everything that it’s meant to do … as well as a good deal more, as will be explained later.
The programme in question is Piano Suite Premier Edition, and it was developed by a company called Adventus that’s located, somewhat unusually, in Nova Scotia (could this be Canada’s very own Silicon Valley, I ask myself?).
By the way, without detracting from the programme which is truly excellent, I must say that the developers haven’t necessarily picked the best name for it, their choice even possibly depriving them of a share of the potential market. After all, Piano Suite does suggest that it’s for piano players. In point of fact, the programme has just much relevance to you whether your chosen instrument is a piano, keyboard or organ (something else we’ll return to later).
That comment out of the way, let’s now look in some detail at the programme itself:
As usual, the software comes in a colourful box that’s about ten times bigger than required for its contents, these consisting of a CD-ROM and, wonder of wonders, a really comprehensive, profusely illustrated, and very well laid-out manual that logically takes you through all the steps you need to install the software and get started using it. (I don’t know about you, but I always get more than a mite irritated when there’s no printed documentation and you’re expected to either make do with on-line help or else have your computer churn out page after page of a manual that should have been in the box in the first place).
Installation is simplicity itself – all you have to do is click Install on the Auto-Run screen that comes up when you start the CD-ROM, make a few choices, and click Proceed. Once the programme is safely installed on your computer, all you need to do is to connect your instrument to it by linking the two with a MIDI cable (remember, the power to both devices should be off at this time).
Should you, as is not all that uncommon with any programme involving MIDI, have a problem in getting the software to link to our soundcard and/or your instrument, then there is a very handy Keyboard Configurations Wizard that will soon help you sort out any hiccups.
As its name implies, Piano Suite is a set of several different programmes. Naturally, while all the various modules of the suite are important, the one that really matters, of course, is Piano Suite itself, the central point from which all teaching and learning activities are launched. The main Piano Suite screen, in fact, offers you a further choice of … well, I suppose you’d call them sub-modules, and, briefly, these are: Piano Player, Theory Thinker, Composer’s Corner, History Happens, and Games. Let’s now look at each of these in some detail……
PIANO PLAYER
This is the main teaching area and when you click on its icon the Song Setup page opens where you can choose which one of the 500 songs that are part of Piano Suite’s inbuilt repertoire (as well as any you may have added yourself by importing MIDI files) you wish to learn or practice.
To facilitate your choice, there are several options you can select so that the list of songs available is automatically reduced to those that match your current requirements. The options open to you – and these interact with each other – include both the level of difficulty (these range from Level 1 to Level 5, the lowest of these including simple tunes for absolute beginners; the highest level offering a selection of music difficult enough to give some grief to even an advanced player), and the category of the song (the choices are: anthem, children’s, Christmas, classical, country, folk, jazz/blues, popular/rock/ religious, and traditional).
Alternatively, to open a song, there is also a box in which you can type in the song’s title – usually only typing the first two or three letters will make the title you want appear – and you can also choose to alter the preset metronome speed to one which is more suitable to your current level.
Once your chosen song is on screen – it appears in traditional notation, the appearance of which you can alter to suit your personal preference as well as the size of your monitor – you then have nine different ways of practicing it. Your choices include: practicing only the right hand part, only the left hand part, or both of these simultaneously; further permutations allow you to select whether you wish the programme to only check whether you are pressing the notes of the right pitch; or only verify whether your timing is correct, taking no account of any notes played are at the wrong pitch; or, finally, to keep track of both pitch and timing.
This wide range of choices is particularly useful for beginners, as it enables them to concentrate on one aspect of their performance at a time and then gradually assemble all of these together so that the song is eventually played as a whole. Even more experienced players may find it most useful, when faced with a typically tricky piece, to be able to concentrate on the bit that particularly troubles them.
The selection of what error-checking method Piano Suite uses at a given time couldn’t be easier: all you have to do it activate one or more of a series of icons that represent itch, timing, and left an right hand parts.
Having chosen your practice method, you can now play the part or parts you’ve selected. As you do so, Piano Suite keeps track of any errors you make, drawing your attention to them as they occur, and also summarizing your performance at its end, telling you where you went wrong, how many mistakes you made, and even pointing out which measures were your worst ones. Naturally, like any other good teacher, Piano Suite only draws your attention to your wrongful ways for your own good … so that in your next practise, to misquote some famous lyrics, you can ‘concentrate on the negative!’ until you get everything just right.
If you’ve never experienced an interactive learning programme like this one, then you may well be forgiven for wondering how effective a teaching method it really is. I, too, have had severe reservations about this approach in the past, but now this teaching method has really come of age and there is no doubt whatsoever Piano Suite does offer an absolutely effective way of learning to play. In fact, compared to the human teacher, it has several distinct advantages: first of all, it is instantly available whenever you have a few minutes to spare; secondly, while its comments upon your performance may be strict – and at times a bit disillusioning – it is absolutely fair in how it grades you; and, finally, it is completely and utterly logical in its approach, something that cannot always be said about two-legged teachers.
However, like a good teacher, the programme keeps track not only of your current performance but also of your progress as a whole, storing information in individual log files that you can review to help you decide what to learn next.
Incidentally, although the musical pieces are arranged in order of difficulty, so as to present a structured course, you can, if you wish, browse through the selection of lessons and pick whatever appeals to you at a given moment. Mind you, if you’re using the programme to teach a child and you wish it to take the lessons in sequence, then there is a facility that allows you to specify that this should be the case.
While I could go on at length about the virtues of this part of the programme, I must reserve some space for its other aspects. Just the same, it has one more feature that I personally find so useful that must be mentioned, and that is the fact that the learning module is completely open-ended as it’s very easy to add more songs to its repertoire just by importing MIDI files. In practical terms, this also means that any specific song you wish to learn can form the basis of a lesson. What’s more, Piano Suite includes facilities for editing standard multi-track MIDI files to make them more suitable for this use. For example, you can take quite a complicated orchestral arrangement and relatively easily transform it so that its essence becomes the part or parts you learn to play.
THEORY THINKER
While the keyboard skills teaching module of Piano Suite described above is, at least in my opinion, by itself worth the price of the whole package, much the same can be said of the Theory Thinker component, which really amounts to the equivalent of a complete two-year music theory course and includes hundreds of lessons and practice samples. Once again, these lessons are carefully structured to follow an absolutely logical sequence that leads you gently and slowly on a step-by-step journey of discovery at whose end you will find that you almost effortlessly learnt more about the theoretical side of music-making than you might ever have thought possible without some truly serious cramming.
COMPOSER’S CORNER
This part of the programme allows you to create and record your own compositions as standard multi-track MIDI arrangement. In effect, it is a particularly user-friendly sequencer, which although simplified still offers all the basic facilities a beginner is likely to need. In its editing mode, Composer’s Corner has a wide range of tools to alter or perfect your composition or, for that matter, any MIDI file, and when you finally have everything just the way you want it, you can then print out your creation in normal notation.
HISTORY HAPPENS
In this section you will find the personal and professional biographies of more than 300 composer and performers, together with time-lines illustrating how music has developed and progressed over the centuries. For movie buffs, there’s also a handy guide to film composers. Another useful extra is a spoken pronunciation vocabulary that includes most common musical terms as well as a good selection of famous musicians.
GAMES TO LEARN THE FUN WAY
From several of the Piano Suite screens you can also directly access one or more musical games. Naturally, the main aim of these games – while certainly good fun to play – is to teach music and musicianship in a recreational way. Be warned: some of these deceptively simple pastimes can become seriously addictive!
Apart from these modules described so far, Piano Suite also includes three smaller programmes, which can be accessed separately. The first of these, the most useful Keyboard Configurations Wizard, has already been mentioned, and the other two are Phantom Player and Music Recorder, both of which are pretty valuable additions to the whole package in their own right.
PHANTOM PIANO PLAYER
Basically a MIDI file player and jukebox, Phantom Piano Player features a graphic representation of a keyboard upon which you can see which notes are ‘pressed’ as the song is played. It also allows you to select the pieces to be performed according to category.
MUSIC RECORDER
Another stand – alone module, Music Recorder is a simplified MIDI sequencer whose great advantage is that it is remarkably easy to use, literally being so simple that a young child will grasp its operation within minutes, although it obviously lacks many of the bells and whistles to be found in its big brothers.
NOT JUST FOR PIANO PLAYERS
As touched upon at the beginning of this review, Piano Suite can be just as useful to keyboard or organ players, the many features it offers being equally of value to any keyboard instrument user. Now and then, if your chosen instrument is something else than a piano, you may need to make some small adjustments.
For example, an organ player wanting the teaching module of Piano Suite to monitor all parts of his performance would have to set up all of his instrument’s MIDI note outputs to Channel 1, this meaning that whatever is played on either of the manuals or the pedalboard would be transmitted and recognized by the software. Naturally, such an arrangement would probably also involve some tinkering with sounds.
Usually, no adjustment is necessary if you’re using a keyboard, other than to inform Piano Suite through a simple pull-down menu of your instrument’s range, whether it has 49-, 61-, or whatever number of keys.
SUMMING IT ALL UP
Believe it or not, I’ve only touched upon the highlights of this remarkable software.
In fact, Piano Suite has lots and lots more goodies than I’ve had room to mention. All in all, it is a programme to be highly recommended, not just for beginners but also for those players who, having acquired their keyboard expertise mainly through self-taught methods, may wish to polish up some of their skills.
- Bill Roberts
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