Have you always wanted to learn a few songs on the piano? For US$149 (about $81-$100 street price), you can purchase the ION Audio PIANO APPRENTICE 25-note Lighted Keyboard for iPad, iPod and iPhone, and use it with the free Piano Apprentice software from the App Store.
I wanted to love this hardware/software solution. I begged for the review unit from Steve Sande, our hardware editor. I was hoping to find a tutorial system that introduced basic piano mastery. Instead, I found a product that doesn’t know who its audience is.
Consider the following snippet from the first lesson on the system, “Ode to Joy.” Keep in mind, this is the first lesson for the user.
There’s no score, no metronome and the keys light up exactly when you’re already supposed to have pressed them. The presenter uses language from root position to D-major and A-seventh without ever explaining what these terms mean, or even what the difference is between white keys and black keys.
So who can use this, people with at least a little music background? Then where are the notes? What about complete complete novices? They’ll need tutorial elements, such as how to hold your hands over a keyboard. Unfortunately, that’s lacking, too. In fact, I found it hard to know exactly who this product is for.
The underlying problem is that this system is structured to create song-by-song product sales. In addition to the initial 6 songs (“Ode to Joy,” “Take Me Out To The Ball Game,” “Greensleeves,” “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again” and, for some reason, the first 10 seconds of Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer”), you can purchase “I Have a Little Dreidel,” “Silent Night,” and “Jingle Bells.”
This song-by-song presentation means each lesson centers on mastering a single piece of music, both left hand (chords) and right (melody). You watch four videos (preview, left hand, right hand, together) over and over and over until you “get it.”
As the presenter speaks, red lights actually appear on the keys you press on the lighted keyboard. You figure out what to press by watching the instructor’s hands and these visual cues.
It seems impossible to learn this way. After I gave it a go (several years of piano lessons behind me), I tried it out on my kids. They all eventually abandoned it, bored and confused.
What this hardware needs is a stronger pedagogy, built-in games to train hands to the keyboard and less of an emphasis on selling individual tracks. Sure, sell lessons — that makes sense — but sell lessons that actually teach piano playing.
On the hardware side, the keyboard, although small, felt comfortable and usable. Although you’re limited to two octaves, a button lets you adjust those octaves up and down. A pull-out adapter plugs into the iPad (or iPhone) connector port, synchronizing the onscreen lesson to the lights in the keys.
I just wished the tutorials matched up to the hardware in terms of cool-factor. As things are, I’m going to give the unit a (regretful) thumbs down. Hopefully, this system will evolve over time because the developers have a germ of really good idea here. That idea just isn’t developed enough to make the purchase worth while.
Piano Apprentice aims to teach you songs originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 08 Dec 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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