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From:Turtle Beach , VOYETRA ,
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User Rating: Amazon Sales Rank:#4659 |
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2 of 2 customers found the following review helpful:
Worked good on XP, 2007-09-29
I purchased this program at the store mostly because the version I bought came with a MIDI USB interface. Once installed it ran fine on my Windows XP machine, but it just had a little AVI movie screen. After upgrading my machine to Windows Vista the program installed, the MIDI interface installed but all videos that came with the product stopped working.
According to the website not all movies will play on Vista and then they informed you that no remedy will be made. Long story short, if you have Vista find another product.
2 of 2 customers found the following review helpful:
 Video Tutorials and Windows Codec warning., 2007-08-20
There is one caveat that you should be fair warned about before buying Voyetra's Teach Me Piano. I went through Voyetra's portal to purchase the software and it is stated that they do support Windows XP. For the most part this will not work out of the box on Windows XP SP2 and there are NO plans for Vista support. The software requires Microsoft RLE Codec which was removed from Microsoft's distributions. The other required codec is the Intel Indeo Codec. Voyetra's tech support responds quickly to your requests but when it comes down to it they suggest reinstalling your OS and trying again. After reinstalling XP SP2 and the additional codec the application still did not work for me. This only impacts the video tutorials all of the other tutorials work great and the lesson plans are well designed and appear to be easy to follow.
 Pretty good for the "very" first timer in music, 2007-07-02
Before buying Teach Me Piano (TMP) I read about possible issues with installation on Windows XP. The copy I received listed XP as a compatible OS. I did not encounter any problems and it works fine.
I (20 years old) have absolutely no musical background and would like to read and play music. So far, after completing several lessons, I have made some progress.
The lessons become more complex as you progress. Each exercise is broken up into two preliminary assessments -- one on the timing/duration of note and the other on accuracy of note selection. After that, you are tested on both of those simultaneously. My keyboard connects to the computer via USB and the TMP software grades your performance on both of the above criteria. I have learnt a few songs so far which I am now able without having to read the music. It's nice to be getting somewhere.
I must note, however, that I don't think I actually read the staff while playing. So far I have not been actively taught to read music. Only the types of notes are introduced but not too much though.
Right now, the finger numbers appear above each note as you play. Depending on what you are trying to learn this may be something to think about. This software teaches you to play but may not teach you how to truly read the music. It is understandable that something may not be able to teach every detail because it may make learning boring, so one may look at this as a positive. Since learning to read music is one of my goals this is why I took one star off my rating.
One advantage with the software is that you look at videos that books do not have and it also grades your performances, as I mentioned. This is good so that you can actually tell whether you are playing the piece properly. I do not go take piano lessons. The exercises also come with demonstrations but I haven't really used them since the sub-exercises are very useful.
I have spend several hours -- though not nearly as many as I should -- and it seems like it will take a while to complete all the lessons. To me I think it should go well in depth.
Right now I am waiting for a book called "Learn to Read Music" by Howard Shanet to reach my local Barnes & Noble. Hopefully I will get around to writing a review for that also.
If you are already using this software, does it teach you to read music in the latter lessons? Please add on anything else worthy of noting.
Although I have not used it, the "Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course" series for learning piano receives decent reviews as well and might be worth taking a look at.
I hope this helps with choosing appropriate means for your learning.
12 of 15 customers found the following review helpful:
Just started using it, 2004-01-27
Obviously, installation woes. I expect it to be very buggy, it looks like it's made with some kind of demo-making SW rather than coded from scratch. Could not get it to work under Windows XP on an AMD setup (Athlon XP/Asus MB/Audigy), works fine so far under Windows XP on a P4 setup (Dell 8300 w/SB5.1). Looks like, as of 2004, most of the Piano Teaching SW programs out there that use a MIDI KB are obsolete, there's this one, Piano Suite, and eMedia Piano & Keyboard left? Those are both twice as expensive. Can somebody compare them? I see that the Piano Suite people are suppressing some bad reviews with their lawyers and it might be as old as this one (XP isn't mentioned in the OS list), and I see that the emedia one is the same company as a very well reviewed guitar program and is brand spanking new and modern (mentions OSX 10.2 in the mac version and XP for PC), but I haven't seen many reviews.
The consensus so far is, it works best on older OSs (98se ets.) might not work at all under XP or 2000 depending on your setup, and when it works, is pretty good. You know what? I'm gonna get the emedia one too and compare sometime.
6 of 7 customers found the following review helpful:
 Great introductory piano lessons, 2003-10-17
I am in my mid thirties and I had never played a musical instrument in my entire life. Two weeks after installing the software I am well on my way to playing my first complete song by devoting about 45 minutes every day to the lessons. Great software, and it does work fine on Windows XP and the MIDI interface of a Sound Blaster card.
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