Softmozart vs Piano WIzard

[akshaya_thaniya]

Hello Friends,

We are planning to start music for my daughters who is 3.3 yrs old and 10 months old. Give me your review about both SM and PW  programs. I saw there was some review but it was before 2 yrs.  kindly give your suggestions.


Swathi

[ashlymcgee]

I have PW and I bought it when my child was 2. Still working on a review series. She is now nearly 5 and has just barely wanted to work with it but she is flying through it, now.  The coordination and timing is a lot of fun for her and she is on it All. The. Time! I couldn't be happier with her self-led devotion. My other daughter is 3.5 and she likes to jump on it, too. She doesn't have the success but she doesn't really notice her low score and it is still visually training her so I know she is getting something out of it. As far as music goes, I think LMS is best for younger ages vs piano "lessons."  If you already have it and are looking to reinforce the love of music, then you do have the hard choice ahead of you between SW and PW!!  I will try to work on my blog some to help you out.  Good luck!!

Ashly

It isn't the best blog in the world and I had trouble loading my video that night so you will have to click on video links, Lol! But it gets my thoughts out there :http://howtoraiseroyalty.blogspot.com/2013/05/piano-wizard.html#comment-form

[Mandabplus3]

I have never used piano wizard but we all love soft Mozart here. Soft Mozart will last you a lifetime of learning piano. You can use it to work from the very basics right through to advanced piano playing. The whole family can use the one program, which means you can learn along with your children.
I agree little musician is a great place to start but soft Mozart teaches all it does plus piano lessons. The program has many components the games teach music reading, keeping a beat, pitch recognition and notes on both treble and base staff. They are fun and my kids never complain about playing the games. I really should let them play them more often. The other part of the program is gentle piano which teaches you how to play piano. The forum provides loads of support for questions as well as videos of all the beginner pieces being played "properly". Useful when you are stuck on something.
Anyway I am confident you won't be disappointed so here is a 20% discount for you if you decide on soft Mozart.
http://go.referralcandy.com/share/66KLVCT

[Creativologist]

So Mandabplus3, do you actually own Soft Mozart?   You are posting a 1 sided argument on this discussion, along with an "affiliate link" so you can make some money and your post is simply an advertisement.

[Mandabplus3]

Yes I do own it.    and I do love it.    I did first admit I don't own Piano wizard. I doubt anyone on this forum would be upset about me posting an affiliate link that gives you a 20% discount on softmozart. I also doubt anyone would be offended by it either.  Swathi asked for a review and that's what I gave her. I can only review what i know about. The choice to use the link or not is entirely optional. I won't be concerned either way. Advertising never entered my mind. Feel free to pay full price  or find another affiliate. I can even recommend some to you if you like.
D you have any questions about softmozart? I can answer questions.

[Tamsyn]

Ashly is my best friend in the EL world and we talk a lot on the phone.  She has Piano Wizard, I have Soft Mozart, and I can tell you right now that we both have drooled over features the other one has, while appreciating the benefits of our own.  I don't think you will be able to get a review on Soft Mozart from anybody using it that isn't an affiliate- we'd be crazy not to.  I'm thrilled with the new affiliate program.  If we invest in it and are using it, of course we'll sign up for their free affiliate program.  For that matter, I'm a Piano Wizard affiliate too, even though I don't have it.  Why not?  So here's the low down.  I think they are both fantastic.

Here is my Soft Mozart review:  http://www.professional-mothering.com/2013/03/its-time-for-formal-review-of-soft.html

It's a glowing review and I mean every word, so with that disclaimer I'll be more objective in my comparisons here for this thread's sake.
The reason I ultimately decided to use Soft Mozart is because it will wait for kids to play the right note before moving on- something I think is more toddler friendly.  Other benefits I see is the recital they do and the forum.  Hellene gave some wonderful advice to my children when we posted our video.  We are very happy with Soft Mozart and the results we are having.  The biggest con is the price.  Their scholarship program makes it much more affordable, but you are still committed to meeting requirements to "pay" for the difference.  It's a legitimate scholarship program and I respect that.  Why buy a piano program if you're not going to practice anyway, right?  It's the route we chose and so far it has worked for us.

Since Ashly posted the video of her daughter's success and has been telling me about it, I have dug into their product reviews and stats and I find myself really wanting to try it out too.  The biggest thing I love is their books- it takes you through the different stages of playing the song with the computer, and ends with reading real music out of a book, and I love that.  There won't always be a computer to practice with.  Where Soft Mozart is more helpful for playing correct notes, Piano Wizard looks better for developing a good sense of rhythm.  SM makes you play the right notes before you can progress where PW encourages you to try and keep up.  Both exercises have merit and great value.  Technically you could do the same kind of thing in the listen mode of SM, but it's not keeping score for you.  PW also has developed more of a curriculum where you start here and work your way through, whereas SM is working on their curriculum and only has the songs labeled by difficulty.  There are some excellent suggestions in the forum, and a curriculum of sorts if you follow their credits system, but you have to dig for it to figure it out- not a pick up and go kind of thing.  SM is making more and more YouTube videos all the time to help you learn your pieces, but PW has some DVDs already put together.
Check out their books at 5:00:  

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/1Bisq3UmNVE&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/1Bisq3UmNVE&rel=1</a>

Without a doubt, I think SM is better for toddlers- another reason I chose it since I've got a couple.  For older kids, I'm not sure yet.  Is the grass greener on the other side?  Part of me wonders if PW would be a better fit for my oldest (ages 4 and 5) and I've put it firmly on my wish list.  (ie, it's not a question of if, but when.)  Piano is particularly important to me and I want to benefit from all the best tools if I can swing it.

Speaking of great piano tools, check out Piano dust buster: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/piano-dust-buster-song-game/id502356539?mt=8

Free Piano lessons for kids http://www.freepianolessons4kids.com/  (my review:  http://www.professional-mothering.com/2013/05/free-piano-lessons-4-kids-review.html)

Here are a few more in a post I wrote a couple years ago:  http://www.professional-mothering.com/2012/02/online-or-product-alternatives-to.html

When push comes to shove, I think the only "magic bullet" for piano is consistent, concentrated practice.  Practice doesn't make perfect, PERFECT practice makes perfect.  Any program that will help your child practice well and consistently, any program that works for your family, is a good one.  I've been teaching piano for 16 years, so I shouldn't need a program to teach my kids at all, but I'm not adverse to shortcuts if they really work.  I'm an education hacker, that's our learning style.     My goal in using a program is to help make that practice perfect.  I don't think you would be going wrong with either one of these for a 3-year-old.  They both have a fantastic track record.  Soft Mozart seams to be the preferred product on this forum, as it is better for tiny children (what we specialize in here), so take that into account.  Still, I am eagerly watching Ashly's family and their progress.

[andreasro]

Hi, Swathi!

I got a Soft Mozart scholarship for perpetual after a year of using it and paid only $100 back then (software bought for 12 months in Dec 2011 speciall offer for BK moms). The Scholaship program didn't have the rule of doing all credits for one year of Soft Mozart Academy curriculum so I can say I got the Scholarship pretty easy and was very lucky, like few other moms here on BK, Manda included.

So you know, I know a lot about Soft Mozart Scholarships, who got them, what they paid for them and all (I am current President of Soft Mozart PTO). It is a matter of confidential information regarding who got what, except the BK moms who were in the first group with me and that posted on BK forum about it.

As stated before, I first started as a mom wanting a piano software for her kid, not as a Soft Mozart fan or else.
My oldest son, Alin (now almost 5 years old), is a special needs child having congenital brain injuries:
- a thin and/or partially developed corpus callossum
- parts of his midbrain missing and "water" (cerebrospinal liquid) taking its place in shape of a "water cyst"
- part of his emispheres missing around the middle brain and in frontal cortex
Also, he had poor fine motor skills before learning to play piano with SM

So taking that into consideration, Soft Mozart has been perfect for us.
He developed perfect pitch much earlier than this video but I didn't record him and I wasn't sure of that until I recorded and posted this one: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/EjNzX62Neyg&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/EjNzX62Neyg&rel=1</a>
He has been transposing songs in the first year of using Soft Mozart.
His fine motor skills have greatly improved because he's using the electronic keyboard often and practicing what he's been learning from SM and from watchig mom playing from SM.

I didn't choose PW, though I saw years ago special needs using it, because I thought SM is easier to use, and not confusing for my kid. He can see colours, but too many colours on screen confused him, was tiring for his brain and he would not react/respond to on screen commands as he normally could. SM gave me the possibility of separating the hands cause it has only 2 colours - one for left, one for right, vertical view mirroring the keyboard. I could cover the screen for left hand and he would practice right hand, and the other way around. Also, I could use only stickers for one hand, than for the other in the same way, covering them. This way he understood by practicing and intuitively left and right hand, he could separate them better in his mind. Exactly one year after using SM he started playing both hands 1 minute before the end of 2012. And he has a corpus callosum disorder! This is what amazed me. He will have an MRI in a month or two and we shall see the difference in his brain development and corpus callossum compared to one done a year ago.

There are few videos of my son on my YouTube Channel (kittengrowingup) and one video with him will be on the thread Soft Mozart Everyone Can (Special Needs children video, part 5-3). http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-music/soft-mozart-everyone-can/

Latest news: My 1 year and 5 months old has been playing piano 2 fingers simultaneosly. His brother is a model for him. YAY!

Added: I am NOT a piano teacher. But a music illiterate mom - at least that's how I started before using SM.

Andrea

[sonya_post]

I cannot speak about Piano Wizard as I only use Soft Mozart. We've been with Soft Mozart for over a year now, and recently I joined the Soft Mozart Parent/Teacher Organization, which is where all the scholarships come from. We keep track of credits so the end of the year recital is a very busy time for us. Actually, we are just busy all the time.....

I used the program for a year before I joined the Soft Mozart Team. Since joining with Soft Mozart and getting to know Hellene and her background I have come to a better understanding of how and why she made the program the way she did. Since she is not a native speaker, I think she hasn't communicated the genius of Soft Mozart in English as well as she does in Russian. I think that is why you find that the Moscow Conservatory endorses her work. Well the Madrid Conservatory does as well, so I guess that doesn't hold true completely.I think you also have to understand the difference between the music education system in the US vs. the music education system in Russia. Hellene went to music school for 7 years before she entered into music college, after that she studied four more years and then on to the music conservatory which was five more years of music study. She knows her stuff. She is a classically trained musician who graduated at the top of her class.  She taught at the university level in the Ukraine and trained teachers in Russia. She even caused a riots at the university as more students wanted in her classes than the university had space for. Very few people in this country have the music background that Hellene does. She loves the classical method of music education. She thinks it is the best method to produce students who can read music, and also take music dictation (which requires perfect pitch and tempo), play, and compose. What she hated about it was that in the beginning only the very best music students will survive. Meaning those students who will learn on any method. Her program is the result of 30 years of research, trial and error and the many many students who were her guinea pigs. 

What you find in Soft Mozart is not a gimmick to get kids to play the piano. It is a classical music instruction made simpler so that it is accessible for everyone not just the musically talented. That is what she was on a mission to do for the last 30 years. This isn't something dramatic or revolutionary in terms of content. What is revolutionary is how modern technology, with the right approach, can move a child much faster in the music journey than any teacher can possibly do. It removes, for a good teacher, the hard labor needed to teach a child to master the basics. And then once a child has mastered the basics, the program can be used by experienced pianists to perfect sight reading and ear training skills. Madrid State Conservatory uses this program with it's university level students. There are other secondary schools using the program as well. I will post a link to the video  Soft Mozart: EVERYONE CAN at the end of this and you can listen to what professionals have to say about this. I am not a professional, I am a parent who just wants to teach music to my child. Soft Mozart, provides me with the opportunity to have a teacher in my house all the time.

What was the problem with classical music education that needed improving? Classical music education has not changed in centuries. The grand staff with all the notes, lines and spaces is gibberish to beginning students. It is like sticking a novel in front of a child's eye and expecting them to read. They just can't. So. Soft Mozart flipped the grand staff so the child doesn't have to worry about how notes move up and down but their hands must move left to right. Then it color coded the the staffs. This judicious use of color is not so that a child will memorize the notes with color, but to help the child to focus the eye. As that is a significant problem for beginning students. the best of us can only hold 7 items in our mind at one time and most children can only hold 2-4. So, Soft Mozart removes all the things a child must remember to make music and slowly and consistently builds the attention span, trains the eyes, ears and hands in an intentional incremental approach. There are no levels to the games where everything is the same on that level, there are complex algorithms that calculate the computer's next move based on what the user of the game is doing. It is not a one size fits all program, it is very individual and interactive. As the child builds the skills necessary to continue, the Grand Staff changes also. There are six settings to the Grand Staff.

What you will find in Soft Mozart is a clean screen, clear lines and a simple presentation. Reading Bear, BK, and Doman have chosen the same approach and I think it works very well. A child's vision is not the same as an adults. The things that get presented visually must move a child in the direction of training the eyes to distinguish all the notes, lines and spaces, they should not be there for entertainment.

The forum: There is a lot of stuff in our forum. We expect to have a brand new one by the end of this year.  But I've always found that if I present my question - even if it's been asked a hundred times, I do not have to go digging for the information, much like BK, other forum members will come to my aid and direct me where to go. And a teacher will always respond with the help I need. When we were trying to get Cayla, our little girl with Down Syndrome, to play with all fingers and two hands, I did not find the help I needed at a non-profit that specializes in teaching Down Syndrome kids piano. I got my help in the forums by just asking and waiting for the answer.  There is no need to wade through the hundreds of posts hoping to get what you want. Just ask. someone will come to your aid.

Scholarship/Academy: These two are closely connected. Right now, a one year subscription to SM is essentially $300. You can get it with a 30% discount if you want to do some work, or just use Manda's referral coupon she posted above to get it for 20% off and no work involved. or you can buy a 30% coupon from BK with your loyalty points. If you participate in the academy, you can earn a perpetual copy free.
Tamsyn is right, this is a genuine scholarship. It is a lot of work for the PTO to keep track of credits and it is a lot of work for the students to graduate each level. But Hellene's intention was to design the academy so that our students would receive all the components of a world class classical music education. You do not need to participate in the Academy, but there is no reason not to. Very soon, you will find tests and quizes attached to each level. So we expect the rigor of the Academy to increase not to get less. I do not have access the anything like this where I live. The Academy means my children can have the kind of music education once available to only a select few. 

Here is the link to the entire video Soft Mozart:EVERYONE CAN. It will do a much better job explaining things than I can:
https://www.dropbox.com/home/SoftMozartHellene2/SoftMozartALLFinal/SoftMozartYouCANParts/Soft%20Mozart%20Evryone%20%20Can

[lzp11]

I wont add too much to everyone's really great and detailed posts.  I also have Soft Mozart. At the time I was also considering between PW and SM and I chose SM for a few reasons.  Firstly because it seemed to me to have more options for teaching different levels. I wanted to teach my kids but I also have always wanted to learn piano myself. I could already read music having played another instrument as a child and I was happy that SM had less of a 'game' approach that I could use for myself (putting it onto screen setting 6 - where the music simply appears as standard music notation is perfect for me), but still offers a lot of support and training for me as an adult learner.  I'm really happy I have been able to make a lot of progress and learned to play some quite challenging musical pieces with the support of Hellene from the forum. I feel like I'm part of a genuine music academy.

My DD was 2.5 when I first got SM and she was not interested at all in learning, so we used Little Musician (which we love too!) for a while until her co-ordination and motivation developed a little further. Now she has just turned 4 and she is really developing confidence and is doing brilliantly with SM.  I am so excited to see how well the international community of children of different ages have performed in the recent recital and she was very motivated to see some other 4-year olds playing really difficult pieces of music so beautifully.

So we love SM. We use it at least 4 times a week each and it has been one of our best EL investments. I don't have any affiliate link, I'm not organised enough to get one - but I still love the product 

[Tamsyn]

I don't think you will be able to get a review on Soft Mozart from anybody using it that isn't an affiliate- we'd be crazy not to

lzp11, I'm eating my words, and I don't think you're crazy.  Sorry about that, everyone, I wasn't thinking.   

[lzp11]

lzp11, I'm eating my words, and I don't think you're crazy.  Sorry about that, everyone, I wasn't thinking.   

Tamsyn - I probably am at least half crazy, but that's a whole other story....   
I'm just too disorganised and busy to get one - I might get round to it but in the meantime I just send people in the direction of other people's discount links 

[Mandabplus3]

   I only have one because someone at softmozart  sent me an email that said (almost only) click here to get your affiliate link.  so I did then it said click her to share on face book, so I did!  then I had a window open with the link.
Probably once I close the window I will never find it again! 

[sonya_post]

Manda,

If you lose your link, we can send it to you again. I would like to pretend that I am this organized but I am not. It is a program that keeps track.....
Technology is very good.

[TeachingMyToddlers]

The colors, background busyness, and lack of a "pause and wait" for the student feature is what drew me away from PW to SM instead. There is failure inherently built in when the program does not wait for the child, but I wish there was an option to turn autoadvance/metronome on with SM once a user is beginning to polish a piece. Maybe PW works ok for older kids and I like that is is very sequential, but the above mentioned issues were deal breakers for me with younger children. Their illogical color scheme is just a visual nightmare on my eyes!

[Tamsyn]

I want to address the illogical color scheme because I know exactly why they did it.  In fact, I did it myself.

When I was still teaching piano, I experimented with color matching.  I had a 4-year-old that wanted to play like her older siblings (this was LONG before I knew anything about EL), and I had the challenge as a teacher of making it more accessible.  I found http://www.pianoforpreschoolers.com/ and I loved the idea of putting an insert behind the keys, but I couldn't figure out WHY they had such an illogical color scheme.  So I started with the rainbow and colored the first song in her book.  Sure enough, she was able to match the colors, mostly.  But the problem for a beginner is, with no color scheme at all, they often mix up notes that are close to each other.  A "C" and a "D" are very close to each other.  Sure, one is a line note and one is a space note, but they are close and we are talking about beginners here.  Well, Red and Orange are also similar, especially in bad lighting or if the crayons you use are too similar.  I experimented a lot with my younger siblings.  I gave them a song with just the letter names and colors- no staff and notes, just to see if it was the colors that were throwing them off.  Sure enough, they too mixed the red with the orange up.  Yes, they knew thier colors, but when you have to think about so many other things, it's easy to mix them up.  They never mixed up the notes between yellow and green.  So I came up with my own color scheme so as not to infringe on any copywrite issues and because I envisioned making my own piano course someday.  Haha, still haven't done it.  Once I mixed up the colors, I had better success.  My 4-year-old student progressed faster when I gave her the new color scheme too.  While you may mix up a C and a D on the staff, you won't mix up blue and pink, or what have you.  Orange and red are still similar colors, but if they're a 5th apart on the staff, it will make little difference.  Anyway, that's why the color scheme is so erratic.

So why is my "Solfege Train" rainbow colors?  I've come full circle, .  The reason for that is that I wanted to teach my kids movable Do and having success with colors, I decided to assign colors to the solfege names.  I already had one crazy color combination for individual note names and I didn't want to introduce a new one that I would be moving all over the place.  Not only that, I now had young children that can read, and I was teaching with big color cues like staircase triangle and step-on floor circles.  I originally did these activities with my crazy color combination for C major, but I didn't want to get them stuck on C major.  So I switched to a rainbow pattern.  Before I was ready to publish, Little Musician came out and had the exact same colors!  Now I realize that many music programs do- Boomwhackers are mostly the same, and Your Baby Can Discover is also very similar.  So I threw in the towel and we went with the rainbow idea.  When I color notes in my children's songbooks, I just make sure to use a light pink, a bold red, and a vibrant orange to make it easier to tell them apart.  Like I said, my kids can read, so having notes labeled "Do, Re, Mi" makes a big difference too.  With my own children, I color the notes based on what key it is in.  If a song is in F major, I color all the F's red, and we move our movable do piano insert around with it.  (http://www.professional-mothering.com/2012/10/movable-piano-insert.html)

Coming back to piano wizard, their color scheme makes a lot of sense to me.  Based on my own experience, I wouldn't suggest you let that be the deal breaker for you.  The other points that have been brought up perhaps would be.  The busy backgrounds could be a good thing or a bad thing- they can distract from what you need to focus on, but they can also give a "cool" factor that older kids might respond better to.  My 4-year-old especially responds well to "video game" teaching environments, and I think she would LOVE to play in the dinosaur level or the horse level, or whatever their pictures are.  I do plan on getting it myself, not sure which package I'll get, but I don't think it will throw my kids off.  They associate the rainbow with solfege only, so figuring out a new color scheme for fixed pitches is something I don't think will be a problem.  At least I hope not.   

On the other hand, Soft Mozart's graphics are specific to the notes, and I really like that.  If they play a note wrong, they get a spider.  If they are holding it too long they see a butterfly.  If it isn't long enough, they see Mr. Oops.  They get really excited over these pictures.  Like I said, Soft Mozart is simply the best I have seen for toddlers.  Older kids may do better with a different program.  For an adult, http://www.playgroundsessions.com/ is the one I want to convince my husband to try.  (found from this list, which I have also looked through:  http://piano-lesson-software-review.toptenreviews.com/)  If you can only get one music program for a 3-and-under child, my recommendation is neither SM or PW, but Little Musician. 

At the end of the day, I'm not trying to prove one is better than the other, I just want my kids to learn to play piano and be musically literate.  Little Reader, for example, is my favorite reading program out there.  Still, they don't get 100% of the credit for teaching my kids to read.  Your Baby Can Read, Monki See, Starfall, and "Meet the Sight Words", and involved parents also played very important roles.  While I know these companies may see each other as competition, in my home they are all tools I use, all companies I love, and they form a symbiotic relationship that all help me reach the common goal of giving my children early literacy.  The fact that Krista (MonkiSee creator) is so active on the BrillKids forum speaks very highly of her and her understanding of how we don't have to compete but we can work together towards a mutual goal. I admire her for that.  Anyway, I suggest that you use the tools that are available to you, that fit your budget, and your family's lifestyle.  There's no right or wrong answer.  Good luck!

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