Piano is Fun Review
Rating:
Summary:
A great course designed for beginners and children up to an intermediate level, Piano is Fun is a well-done course for early stage players. The software is designed for PC users and comes with a variety of user-friendly tutorials to help master the basics of piano playing. With its intuitive, friendly interface, the course provides a great learning opportunity for young players to truly integrate themselves into the world of music.
Package:
A software-based course, Piano is fun comes in a downloadable format for PCs – Mac users can only use the software if they have a virtual Windows machine. The downloadable program comes with a comprehensive set of lessons for beginning players, and has great visual and audio presentation for young children to truly embrace the learning process. With well designed PC-compatible, interactive software Piano is Fun provides a wide variety of tutorials, lessons, audio files and interactive games that makes piano learning fun for students of all ages.
Best For:
Piano is Fun stands out as one of the single best children's and beginner's courses on the market today – designed for early stage players who can benefit from a visual approach to learning, the friendly user interface makes it ideal for those who want a more complete approach to beginner education. Ideal for parents, educators and teachers working with younger children (ages 3-12), the software is a great choice for helping to get students interested in self-motivational learning.
Pricing and Assurances:
The downloadable software is available for a low price of $29.95, which includes a complete software package. The software comes with a complete 30-day satisfaction guarantee, which enables you access to a complete refund during that period. As a result, you only have to send an email to the company and they will refund your purchase for the first 30 days. With a full 30 day trial you'll be able to determine whether Piano is Fun is right for you.
Our Review:
Developing a children's piano software course which is truly enjoyable for a variety of students is a truly challenging experience. Piano is Fun largely succeeds in that goal with well thought out software which is designed to help children advance to the next level. Featuring high quality animation, interface designs and intuitive lessons just for children, the course features 20 lessons that help teach children the core basics of the instrument. With important lessons ranging from learning the basics of music reading, understanding the relationship between chords and the keyboard layout and basic ear training, Piano is Fun delivers a broad set of educational opportunities.
With a high quality, student friendly interface, the course lessons are delivered directly by friendly cartoon avatars. These lessons guides are great for motivation, and make learning a truly fun process for students of all ages. As students progress through the game they earn awards similar to real-world school progress – this keeps young children motivated to learn and focused on the next stage in the process. Students earn various awards and medals along the stages, ranging from bronze to silver and gold – all enabling students to actively enjoy progression throughout the learning process. The well designed interface results in superior learning for students of all ages, and allows students to quickly progress through the learning process.
While there is no substitute for sitting down at a keyboard and beginning to master new concepts, Piano is Fun provides a great framework for learning music at a deeper level to facilitate piano playing. Students are even able to save the certificates to show them to their parents and teachers, much like a real world educational environment – as a result, the learning process becomes substantially more interesting.
An Interactive, Fun Learning Environment
By designing the program according to children's passions, the software makes the entire learning process quite enjoyable. With a complete interactive learning environment, Piano is Fun allows students to participate in games, quests and challenges found in many common recreational programs – the main difference is the puzzles active reinforce musical learning from beginning to end. Getting students to diligently learn musical concepts are once easier when it is presented in a user-friendly format in Piano is Fun.
Families will particularly enjoy the interactive tracking features which allow individuals to monitor the independent results of multiple players – therefore, parents are able to teach core lessons to students at various levels, while allowing each child to progress at his or her own pace. If you're looking for a great way to incorporate interactive lessons for multiple children, Piano is Fun truly delivers a better interactive learning experience. While the software is usable by children of all ages, it's ideal for those of elementary age who can get even more out of the basic learning experience.
You can even utilize the program remotely, since many of the core lesson files can be accessed through online streaming. At the same time, the software easily installs on a laptop so children can bring the program to their teacher's lessons, school environments and can even learn on the road. This portability makes the program ideal for a wide variety of purposes. With easy setup, integration and intuitive game play, the course is great for those looking to take musical educational to the next level.
One aspect that particularly stands out is the clever graphics and game design throughout Piano is Fun – a well designed, intuitive interface makes it ideal for students of all ages. We give the program a 3 star rating because the setup process and flexibility can be improved – it would be great to have a version for Macintosh as well as better parental tracking to get more out of the software from beginning to end. While adult beginners will be able to dive in with ease, the program requires close parental supervision to ensure children are staying on the right track. Therefore, while we give the design high marks the organization of the material is somewhat lacking from beginning to end.
The Educational Principles of Piano is Fun
Designed by leading software maker Dr. Anthony Fernando, the course is based upon his real world experiences in creating a program for his family. After teaching his nephew how to master the basics of musical notation, Dr. Fernando then created Piano is Fun based upon the core concepts that worked for his family – as a result, the program is based upon real world learning environments. Parents will appreciate the extra efforts he went to open up the learning environment to children in a friendly, easy to use format.
At its base level, Piano is Fun is designed for musical education. Students are able to learn important concepts the right way in an interactive, friendly learning environment. While the program is designed for younger children just starting to learn music, it is also useful for children and players who want to refresh their basic music skills on nearly any instrument. The core principles of the program related to learning that is centered around:
- Gradual Learning
Especially for younger students, it's important to take a gradual approach to mastering more complex educational concepts. Students learn by building upon their knowledge in a progressive manner, and Piano is Fun ensures each lessons builds on the previous ones. For example, in early lessons students learn the core notes and then use those notes to start building out major chords such as C (C, E, G). As a result, the material in the courses expands in importance along with the broader context of the materials. From beginning to end, students learn important concepts in context, which enables them to gradually build a progressive base of knowledge until they are playing complete pieces.
- Visual Environment
Young children learn by seeing and coming to explore their visual environment. Piano is Fun is designed to bring this world to life through cartoon characters, interactive games and colorful animation. With a complete, animated approach to learning students are able to reinforce the core lessons from the games into new areas. As a result, the visual environment actively encourages students to take new directions with their learning and to explore music in new ways.
- Progress Tracking
Young students need concrete ways to track progress, successes and benchmarks during their educational journey. Piano is Fun provides intra-game benchmarks complete with medals, awards and ribbons along the way. Students can also save the progress of their learning from session to session, making the learning experience much more valuable over time.
The broad set of features and user friendly format makes the software a great supplement for children and even adult beginners. Music teachers who want a great way to have students warm up between sessions or to test their skills will find Music is Fun truly lives up to its namesake. Affordably priced, the software is a great pairing for children who are actively engaged in music lessons and need a program to help them keep on the right path. Complete with a broad set of theory and principled lessons, Music is Fun helps bring piano lessons to life for beginners.
