I received my copy of Soft Mozart yesterday after placing an order for it a week ago (I live in the UK) and I am planning to start using it full-swing tomorrow. Prior to this purchase, I spent a lot of time researching both SM and PW. I originally wanted to try out both products with my daughter, compare and decide which one would be best suited to her strengths and challenges. Since it was easier to try SM as a there is a demo version available on their website, I started with this programme first (as Chris explained to me in the “Piano Wizard” thread, it was not possible to try PW’s demo with a keyboard to see how it worked with my daughter, so I would need to buy the product and use the 60-day guarantee, which seemed a less easy option).
After trying SM demo for about 3 weeks I decided to purchase it without trying out PW, which, in case I wanted to return it, would mean I would lose on fairly high outgoing shipping charges (although, as Chris clarified, shipping the product back would be free). I have described my research, our experiences with SM demo, as well as the reasons why I decided to purchase it over a few very looooong posts in my blog (
http://lmshomeschool.blogspot.com/search/label/Music), which I would not reproduce here. I will simply summarise a few points relevant to this thread.
Please note, that firstly, I have
NOT tried PW so my views regarding it are based purely on what I saw in the videos and thus may not necessarily be accurate. I am not in any way affiliated with SM and paid the full price for the product (Home Version). Furthermore, it is not impossible that had I tried PW first, I would have seen more benefits in it and would have decided to go for it without trying SM. Secondly, I was not choosing the better programme between the two, but the better programme
for my daughter, taking into account her personality, learning style, her strengths and weaknesses. Lastly, I am no musicologist or music educator and my background in music is very limited, so many points below are simply my subjective layperson speculations – you are very welcome to correct me if I am wrong.
1. In terms of on-screen presentation of each music piece, I feel there is a clearer visual discrimination between right-hand and left-hand parts in SM (thick brown and green lines) which I think would be helpful for my daughter to master each part in these simple pieces by the correct hand.
2. There are more levels in SM (six vs. four in PW) which is likely to make her transition between levels smoother.
3. I feel that the coding system in SM may be less confusing to my daughter than that in PW. In SM only white keys are coded (with pictograms) and the student first learns to relate each one of these to the specific places on the great stave (grand staff). All the accidentals (black keys) are introduced later. Whereas in PW, all keys (both black and white) are coded (colour-coded), and the fact that there is no one-to-one correspondence between the keys on the keyboard and the lines/spaces between the lines of the staves, I feel that when it comes to sight-reading, it could be potentially confusing to my daughter to see the same notes, in the same places of the staves, coloured differently (if sharp or flat), as well as see different notes placed differently on the staves (on the line or between the lines) but having the same colour. She probably would get over it but I think it would take her longer.
4. I think there are benefits to learning solfeggio and SM places a lot of emphasis on it.
5. As discussed in this forum, SM allows to stop and think before playing each note and will not move on until you get it right. I completely agree with Chris that a note played out of time is not a correct note. However, I was apprehensive about the fact that my daughter might not like the fact that she could not be in control of the flow (when she plays SM’s "Guess the Key", which is another game in SM package and which, although programmed to adjust automatically to the speed of the player and to slow down, does not give this control, she tends to get stressed, so I could foresee that happening with PW’s scrolling system). I thought that although it would not help her to learn intuitively note duration and rhythm, I thought having the option of being in control of the flow initially and the notes not moving unless she got them right, could help her focus on the notes on the staves better and prevent the risk of her simply starting to slap any note (or many notes to increase her chances) without much thinking.
6. Lastly, SM has a less expensive Home Version, with an option of upgrading it to the full version when time (and money!) comes. Buying PW Academy even by instalments would mean a very big investment for our family.
I did not have much trouble installing it, although by some reason the CD did not respond initially, but that could have been down to the laptop. Although the game interface does appear out of date, it was not my priority, as the novelty of any game, even most flashy, would wear off sooner or later, so that was not an important criteria for me. However, there are a couple of things in SM, which if changed, could help students with a similar learning style to my daughter's.
1. First of all, it is the system of scoring. The left-hand score, which shows the number of correct notes hit, is represented by flowers, so it makes complete sense to young visual learners that the more flowers you “picked”, the better you did. The right-hand score, which shows how far you have gone off the ideal tempo and rhythm, is not represented in any visual way apart from a number, which is supposed to be better the smaller it is. With my daughter being a perfectionist and getting most or all notes correct, the left-hand score with all or nearly all flowers picked, soon became of no value, while I don't think the right-hand score makes much sense to her.
2. Perhaps, it would be helpful if instead of using metronome to perfect the tempo when practicing learnt pieces, there is an option of playing each song at different speeds with notes not stopping for you to get them, but flowing in a similar style to PW with the score reflecting how close you were to the ideal.
3. I hope, that in future in Guess the Key game, there will be an option of hiding the pictograms on the falling fruit, allowing the child to guess the key by just listening. There is a suggestion in one of the videos to simply cover the screen with a shawl, but taking away all visual input is not too exciting for my visual learner.
In conclusion, I have to say choosing between the two products was not an easy decision and big thanks to Hellene and Chris that we can have this choice.
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