Buy Soft Mozart or wait for Little Musician.

[MamaOfWill]

While I was pregnant with my baby, I played music to my baby on a xylophone, a kids piano, my full size cello, a recorder and a child sized guitar that my husband bought for the baby when I got pregnant.  Almost as if he knew the guitar was bought specially for him, he would wake up and go crazy whenever I played it, and never responding like this for any other instrument, music or anything else I did during pregnancy.

His love for his guitar continued after birth and I try to give him some assisted playtime with his guitar each day.  Now almost 13 months old, he enjoys strumming while I sing and hold down the cords, (he also tries to “sing” along.)  He experiments by plucking the strings individually with his thumb or forefinger, strums randomly with both full hands and smacks the strings.  He doesn’t bang the guitar or put it in his mouth like with all his other toys.  I’m not trying to say he’s advanced or anything like that, he’s pretty much an average baby all round, just that he really loves his guitar and I would love to teach him to play.

There’s a lot of talk about Little Musician, we can’t buy this app yet, right?

What is / will be the difference between Soft Mozart and Little Musician?

Is Soft Mozart aimed more towards teaching to play music on the piano?

What will you guys be using/ what are you currently using and why this choice?

[Mandabplus3]

I managed to explain this once before successfully so I will try again and see if my brain is still good for it 
Ok so what you need to know is basically the difference is little musician is a music knowledge program which will teach your kids to read music on the staff, teach them terminology and potentially give them perfect pitch. It will be a quality in depth program if we know brill kids 
Soft Mozart does all this but also teaches kids to play an instrument ( the piano). The music knowledge part comes from a children's story book, the perfect pitch comes from practicing games and playing piano and the piano learning part is just plain fun! . I have soft Mozart and use it with two of my kids plus myself. My oldest 8 loved learning the musical alphabet, games and singing part of the program but hasn't started playing using the program. My just 4 year old boy has learnt to play hot cross buns with two hands and started on jingle bells in less than a month ( Christmas slowed us down a bit) 2 and 3 year olds learn piano easily with this program. My 6 year old is flying through it and learning the music alphabet faster than me!
Both programs would compliment each other beautifully and as I said before If little musician was available I would recommend that you use it until your kids are close to three then use soft Mozart from there on.
I cannot tell you what to do because of your sons solid interest in guitar. If you think he will enjoy piano then ALOT of the skills he learns ( perfect pitch, cords, scales, finger strength...) will be transferable to guitar once you think he is old enough to handle a guitar. All the Questions you have probably have been answered on the softmozart.com forum. If not ask away! There are videos of kids learning and you can try out the program to see if he likes it.

[Mae_Jakob_Ka]

Mandabplus3,   karma to you for explaining the differenced of both programs so well!!!

I have bought Soft Mozart but have not really tried it. We are moving.  This music program is therefore postponed.
Since I am a diehard fan of Brillkids products, I will definitely get myself a copy of Little Musician too! I trust in BK’s quality of work.  I am thinking Little Musician will help my son learns to read music, while Soft Mozart will help him learn how to play the instruments??
Well, I am a musical challenged Mom who is trying to seek for tools that will help me "teach" my son music.

[Mandabplus3]

Both programs will teach your son to read music, soft mozart will teach you too!
Please bare in mind I have not used or seen little music BUT I have read everything on the forum about it!
I personally think the whole point of music education is to learn to play music because in playing music you can fully enjoy music!  Piano is a great place to start as it teaches so many skills tranferable to other instruments. Added points are allocated to programs that teach solfege and perfect pitch! Which luckily both these have the strong potential to do.

[TeachingMyToddlers]

I can see both points, but one question that I have is how many children have actually been documented to acquire perfect pitch from SM? I hope lots and lots of children, but until that is verified even with anecdotal evidence, I don't know that I trust a piano learning software to teach it.

[Mandabplus3]

Fair enough too. I shall ask! But personally I have been playing their note recognition game for less than a month and I can already recognize two notes I never would have been able to before...I can't say if that is a re awakened memory from my early youth or a new skill, but it is definitely developing. On the other hand a piano is more likely to produce a true note than a set of computer speakers so I wonder how little musician will do it? Like I said I would use both and hedge my bets
But I like your question,  forward it to Hellene? Or I can.

[MamaOfWill]

I've now done some research and I'm really looking forward to LMs, does anyone know roughly when it will be launched?

I'm thinking that I will do the lessons with guitar, xilophone, recorder, cello or toy piano as far as possable. (I have no clue what the LMs lessons are going to look like, but if it's anything like LR, then the "multi sensory" lessons equivalent will give me a chance to play the music for a specific slide on a real instrument for more reinforcement + claping and singing along as was suggested.)

To me, perfect pitch is not all that important, I enjoy playing music, can play by ear, didn't have much musically training though and don't even know if you can say I've got relative pich, but hey, if Wilhelm learns perfect pitch on our music journey, great great great!

Hurry up Little Musician, we want you!!!!

[TeachingMyToddlers]

On the other hand a piano is more likely to produce a true note than a set of computer speakers so I wonder how little musician will do it?.....
But I like your question,  forward it to Hellene? Or I can.

Yes and No. A *digital* piano or perfectly tuned acoustic is more likely to produce a true note versus an out of tune acoustic! And how many people let their acoustic pianos go out of tune, or cannot tell when they do? Of course SM uses digital pianos, which I don't see how the sound would be any different than say, the speakers on a computer?

The Taneda method (which was translated into English as the "We Hear and Play" method) of developing Perfect Pitch, whole heartedly believes in using a real, acoustic, perfectly tuned piano to teach this skill beginning at age 3 (while learning to play piano at the same time). The Taneda method was/is(?) very popular in Gemany and gained some movement in Japan as well from my understanding. However, the methods are a bit archaic (I am reading their book at the moment) and were designed a few decades ago, not exactly for our computer/ipod loving youth of today. There is a gentleman in California who runs weekly classes loosely based on their methods to teach children perfect pitch. He is an extremely passionate, serious musician who trains children using downloads to play via computer/MP3 players at his in-person sessions combined with at-home practice. He is finding success in his method, but at this time does not have an online/distance program. His downloads can be found here--
 http://lapreschoolpiano.wordpress.com/downloads/

And he explained to me the difference between the "haves" and the "have notes" when it comes to perfect pitch in the music world. Basically, it takes less practice to attain the same results as you climb the musical ladder of skill and ability. I kind of equate it to mental math, speed reading, or even photographic memory, sure it's not VITAL, but what a skill to have if you can develop it!

So, based on that theory of this gentleman having success using MP3 files, I don't think that using digital pianos/keyboard or computer speakers is an issue, which is great news for both SM and LMs.  And I completely agree with your stance, use as many programs as you can expose your child to and that they enjoy! I feel that these two systems both teach very valuable skills and complement each other nicely.  I would be interested to hear statistics available on SM if they exist,so  feel free to inquire. This includes--

1) What percentage of kids using SM are developing PP?
2) At what ages?
3) How long does it take to see PP results with consistent practice? (Daily? How many times per week?)
4) Are there any adults that are acquiring using SM that are acquiring PP?
5) Is the perfect pitch receptive (naming notes on hearing them) or expressive (producing them with their voice at will with no external reference)?
6) Have any users that developed PP reported pictorial or even color associations when hearing the notes? (i.e., does the mental imagine of a door flash upon hearing Do/C)
7) Is the PP long term or does it fade from lack of use if a user stops using the program?

Those are indeed lots of questions, they kept coming as I was typing them!   I am pro pretty much any and ALL learning systems, I think each has it's own merits, but more background information is always a good thing! So, if you want to forward them on or even if HH wants to answer here, I'd love more information on it! Layering the learning with multiple programs really is the best approach IMO. Thanks!

[SoftMozart]

Let me step in and answer your questions.
First, we have to determine what is the tool in music learning and what is the goal.
Perfect pitch is not a goal of music education. I personally know many musicians, who had perfect pitch and it was more a burden for them then a blessing. I have perfect pitch. Sometimes, I do not hear a chord as a whole, but bunch of pitches. I can say each pitch for everyone amusement, but feel myself as a circus dog – not a musician.
The goal of music education is music literacy, when your child is capable to comprehend ADVANCED music pieces. Why it is so important to be able to do this?
There are many reasons, but the most important, to my mind, is social and academic. If our kids can hold in their minds just simple tunes, they are perfect candidates to be trapped by primitive, hypnotizing and impoverishing pop/rap/rock music only. This music is debilitating kids and creating wrong social environment for them.   Perfect pitch won’t be able to come to rescue. Second, academic reason: advanced music develops both parts of brain. Period.
We never specially checked if each child who is learning with Soft Mozart, specially develop perfect pitch. We guarantee that every child will be able to play advanced pieces, memorize them, will be able to read any sheet music, will develop voice and music ear. But after I receive many testimonies from different Soft Mozart teachers all around the Globe that in fact most of the students in their class develop perfect pitch on the top of that, I started to check my students and – yes! – they do hear pitches of sounds.
It is very simple and logical explanation why they do. There are 2 reasons for that also:
1.   They play way more piano pieces then with other systems– I mean – advanced piano pieces – I mean – they practically starting playing using both hands even when they 2 and 3 year old from the very first month – even sometimes from the very first lesson. Driver always remember directions much better than passenger, right? Soft Mozart students have 100 times more driving experience.
2.   We include singing – using voice and speech memory in our learning process. Scientists discovered long ago that our voice is the major tool of the music ear development. I described all this in my book ‘You CAN be a musician’ and in this forum you can find a topic about this book being offered for free on our site.
Recently after seeing this discussion I had decided to videotape my 3 year old student Rachel. Her mom is also member on this forum. Rachel developed perfect pitch with Soft Mozart after 4 months learning piano with Soft Mozart. On this video I am playing simple melodies for her and she just repeats them.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/VG_bNNMiZQ8&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/VG_bNNMiZQ8&rel=1</a>

[Kerileanne99]

Thanks for the info and video! You will soon have a new little customer!  We will be starting Suzuki violin lessons in a few months and I was looking for something to do in the meantime...this is fantastic!

[Mandabplus3]

Oh wow! Well done Rachel! I watched very carefully and noticed that she actually was more accurate when she wasn't trying to peek! Lol so her ears are better than her eyes!
Kerileanne I warn you now, you may get hooked on soft Mozart, so book in those violin lessons otherwise you may never go  Oh and please share your learning in the soft Mozart forum too!
Thank you popping by to add value to our conversation soft mozart    gosh every time I learn something new about it I am more encouraged to put in full effort. I wonder if I will be able to do that in 4 months time...I guess my kids will, it appears they are faster learners than me 
So basically like all early education, what program you choose should be determined by your overall goals. So do you want your kids to have perfect pitch? If yes they why?
Personally I want my kids to be able to play music and have fun with it, to be creative and have a great solid music education so they can adapt it to an instrument ( or 7!) of their choosing. Their formal piano lessons would only achive half of that. Myself personally I want to improve my ear so I can fully appreciate the music around me and I want to play music! Music that makes my heart sing!
Soft Mozart will fit the bill for us. Just consider your goals and then you can make a wise informed choice. It may be softmozart or something else may fit better. Sometimes it takes two programs to get all you want. Ging to watch that video again! Amazing, go Rachel!

[Mandabplus3]

I just realized I missed a couple of your questions, teachingmytoddlers, I know you like details from reading you posts so I can add bait more for you.
Q1 I would say most if not all who actually use it and don't leave it rusting in the cupboard, but softmozart answered that one above.
Q2 it seems age isn't as important as regular practice. So all ages from 2 up!
Q3 ok this one would vary but most of the kids seem to be practicing daily, I am sure Rachel does and they develop improvements towards perfect pitch very quickly. Within a month my own daughter is singing much closer to on key. Personally I noticed improvements to my ear within a fortnight. Having not attained perfect pitch in our house yet...stay tuned 
Q4 Hellene has assured me it will come! I will attain perfect pitch with practice and she suggested before my year was out.
Q5 receptive and expressive, definitely both!
Q6 and Q7 I have no idea sorry 

[TeachingMyToddlers]

Thank you both for answering my questions. For the record, I was able to play Ode to Joy (under classical favorites) with both hands in about two weeks or so, without daily practice. My daughter (3 years, 2 months) is now playing the left hand of hot cross buns as well as right hand, mostly using the correct fingers. She is just now beginning to put them together, if I had to guess, she has used the program about 10(?) times. Sometimes for an extended period, other times for just a minute or two. It depends on her mood. She plays quite a few nursery rhymes all the time that she learned from other programs as well, we are working on using the correct finger placement with her- when using and when not using SM.

Does SM allow users to create their own songs? I don't remember reading anything about that, unless I missed it somewhere.

[luke6v38]

My son loves his ukelele but is not very keen on piano at the moment. Is there any good software/lessons for ukelele? Many thanks.

[TTT8]

7) Is the PP long term or does it fade from lack of use if a user stops using the program?
[/quote]

From my understanding, once Perfect Pitch is develop they are long term. It will develop more with extensive playing pieces using SM program. Rachel develop perfect pitch with only one program which is SM and I believe it is through her playing extensive pieces using the program and singing solffege for every songs that she played.

 

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