THE DUELING PIANOS SHOWDOWN- PW VERSUS SM

[TeachingMyToddlers]

I am just a lowly forum member here and of course this is just a suggestion. But clearly, the dueling pianos have gone on long enough. I propose a showdown.

Why don't each of you give your product to an objective third party for review? You could go about that a few ways:

1) Forum members could apply here to be a product tester and there could be a random drawing selecting one person, or

2) There could be a random objective third party mommy blogger chosen who has NOTHING to do with this forum or it's history, who writes great detailed reviews. A mom with a toddler around 2 years old would be ideal, multiple children would be even better.

3) You could find some professors at a university to look it over and review, but this might not be as realistic because they would be music professionals, not the kind of people that would regularly be purchasing your products.

Regardless of who wins, maybe everyone could cool their jets for a while and stop defending themselves unnecessarily. The forum members could all get some *real* valuable opinions on the products, and both business owners could get great feedback about the product and any changes that might need to be addressed in the next version. I would love to see a comprehensive table comparing the products side by side, from what I understand they are more alike than different. I am talking a VERY detailed, thorough review from the consumers point of view, not the creators.

All of the forum members here could take some time to create a list of questions for the reviewer to address. The review would have lots of pictures of what comes in the kit, a comparison table, a narrative, and some video footage uploaded of the reviewers explaining their experience and showing use would be even better.

So, that's my suggestion to end the dueling pianos saga. What do you say Chris & HH.....anyone up to the challenge?

[aangeles]

HH and Chris,

Sorry to butt in on this ongoing conversation. May I offer my humble opinion? Maybe each of you guys can offer an uninterested third party a sample copy of your programs to use and compare (some members of this forum come to mind - DomanMom, DadDude although he may currently be too busy with his new son to do it, waterdreamer, etc) and write a comparative review of them. The review would not be a scientific comparison (not even close), but at least it would offer us parents a real life example of someone who has used both methods and it will give us some idea of the pros and cons of each method. What do you say?

I did humbly suggest a third party review ages ago, but, so far, no one has taken up my suggestion. Great minds think alike eh, TmT?   

[aangeles]

Although now that you mention it, I do think it would be better if the reviewer does not have anything to do with this forum or its history, to be completely fair and unbiased.

[waterdreamer]

I like that idea, kind a put your money where your mouth is kind of thing. Still there is no excusing the lack of respect one party has show to the other party and other members of the forum.

[ChrisSalter]

All,

I had to laugh at the title of this topic. If this were swordplay, I would be the guy backing up and parrying but not attacking, only defending. (I am glad it is not, her tongue is sharp enough!) I have never wanted a "duel" but certainly didn't want to lay down and die either! Luckily this is all just words and opinions, no matter how strong, so no harm done.

I understand people would like an "objective" review, pros and cons of these two products, but I have a few issues or concerns with that approach.

A) I hate competition in music. I really believe in collaboration, cooperation and complementing teamwork. I also believe that no one solution is right for everyone.

B) "Objective" is actually subjective in its grading and weighting criteria. One example we had early on is "academic credentials" vs "customer testimonials", where I felt that the testimonial of a "profoundly retarded" (her words) boy's mother were amazing proof of our game's effectiveness, while Hellene cited white papers and studies. Which is worth "more"? That is one example of how false equivalencies or disparities can be reviewed, weighted, etc. In the end, people will either agree with the review, agree with its conclusions AND assumptions (what is most relevant/important) or not, It will STILL be a gut decision by the reader, just with one more piece of "evidence" that will be nothing but one more point of view. That person may be a great reviewer, or a superficial one, they may be fair or biased, we don't know until we see the review, and I BET someone disagrees with their conclusions anyway!

C) I actually think that the forum members can't really go wrong here with either choice, they will be far better than traditional lessons by themselves, and if used in conjunction with traditional lessons, they will be even more powerful, assuming an open minded piano teacher embracing and enhancing the value of either program.

D) On a practical issue, is time. Most people looking at this seriously rather than for the drama, are actually trying to make a Christmas buying decision, as educated a one as they can, many overseas, and needing to make a decision soon to make sure they get the products in time, and in our case before keyboards run out. So there is really no time now to do parallel in depth reviews with multiple children as guinea pigs (every parent will want their child's demographic in the study . . ) at least not before Christmas in time for shipping.

 As I said above, they should reduce their anxiety levels a bit, I think either program will be a plus to their efforts, a positive step in a life long journey to music literacy. I do NOT think either program will hurt in any way. Since I believe a so called "objective" review will be a far more subjective review in reality than people think, and merely one more data point in a sea of data points, I suggest people really go with their gut. Weigh it out with your own research, read all the posts you can, or want to, watch all the videos you can or want to, and make a bet on what feels right to you. I do not know Hellene's return policy, but you cannot lose with ours, either it works or we buy it back from you. I assume she stands behind hers as well, so your real risk is time, starting down a path that doesn't work out for you, but you can still make an educated decision then and return the product if it doesn't. Neither product will work optimally if you just put it under your pillow while you sleep, the more actively involved sharing the programs with your children the better, surprise surprise, this is true with reading, writing, arithmetic, sports, you name it. We just try and empower you to do the same with music in a way that was not possible before.

If either program works for you, and you are getting great results, don't second guess yourself and think "but maybe the other program would have been better" just be overjoyed you and your family added music to your world and give it your all. The reality is there is tremendous overlap in our approaches, and that overlap is the strongest parts of our programs, so with either program I believe you will still get the "meat". It may have different sauces, vegetables, spices, etc., but you will likely be well fed either way. It is a false "either/or". (By the way, sorry for the "meat" analogy for you fellow vegetarians, but you get the idea!).

Finally, did I mention I really hate this competitive approach anyway? Don't look for me to be thrusting back at Hellene anytime soon, she is not and never will be my "enemy". I do feel I have to defend and clarify what we have, in full authenticity and integrity, since warts and all I fully believe it is a great contribution and choice, but vanquishing Hellene or "winning" a review would only make me sad.

You really can't go too far wrong either way. The worst choice is no music, and I hope whatever your solution, mine, hers, Suzuki, traditional, whatever, that you find a way to bring it home and make it work for you and yours.

So with that I humbly suggest there is more than enough information out there, make your own educated decisions based on what resonates with you best, what makes sense to you, and good luck and God bless.

Thanks

Chris

[TeachingMyToddlers]

Fair enough Chris, thank you for taking the time to respond.


As a forum, we can only hope that we read more positive interactions from everyone in the future regarding piano products and opinions.

[waterdreamer]

Good for you Chris. I agree as long as a child is exposed to music and has the opportunity to learn that's all that matters. My son is using the Suzuki method for violin, however I can not afford $150 every 3 months for piano as well. So one he has a good foundation in violin I will be looking for a digital teacher to help him with piano. Right now I'm looking at your program or possible kinderbach. Which ever I feel will work best for us when the time is right.

[aangeles]

Thank you, Chris, for your reply. I appreciate it. 

[susankhan]

Thank you Chris and we will be contacting you soon to purchase for our school

Susan Khan

[HH]

If it takes a competition to help kids to receive the best quality of education, I am for it!

Here are some essential features of invention that make Soft Mozart ONLY program in the world that actually teaches to play piano and read music.

1.   Look at the pictures #1 and #2. It is hard to believe, but nobody before us looked at the Grand Staff this way. Nobody paid attention to the fact that notation of Grand Staff is perfectly symmetrical.  I think, this discovery much alike discovery of the Earth gravity made by Issak Newton.

 Today this picture you may find on the wall of different schools and universities. This is getting spread pretty fast in different countries.

If you won’t buy our software, but would take a look at this picture, it would already help you to understand the music notation once and for all.

If you teach your child traditionally, Suzuki or with any other method, this picture will help him/her to understand the notation as a map, to grasp the logic of the notes’ placement.

Feel free to print this pics and place it somewhere to be on your sight.

BTW the picture was made by my daughter Valery

[HH]

2. If you don’t want to bump into something, don’t walk around in the dark.

When I only just started learning, I found a treasure: a small knick on one of the keys of my piano. Thank you, whoever it was that put it there! It served me as a loyal and honest hint for several years, before I completely memorized the keys of the piano. The knick was very close to Do; it was on Re! When learning new pieces, I looked to it like a ship’s captain looks for a lighthouse. Even now, I think of this tiny little scratch with appreciation and fondness. It saved me like a life vest saves a man overboard!

Because of this, I made some stickers that can be applied to every key. This is like a map of the entire space. It gives a beginner all of the information he needs. On each key, I placed its name, whether it is on a line or space (depending on its color), and in confluence with sheet music, I added the lines of the treble (green) and bass (brown) clefs. The keys, the grand staff, and the keyboard’s sound are united by stickers into a single entity. The kids are spared from many hours of impractical mental work, and the attention has been focused onto coordination and the reading of notes.

We are saling a lot of key guides and key stickers to self learners and piano teachers/students, who even teach/learn piano traditionally.

It means, our approach doesn't conflict with any traditional ways of teaching music/piano and just ades what was missing.

There suppose to be just 4 different colors to explain entire notation: Treble, Bass, lines and spaces.

On the pic 2 I show the Solfeggio image: Door, Rain, Mirror, Farm, Sault, Ladder, cup of Tea stand for sounds of music.

You may simply switch ABC notation to Solfeggio by pressing A or I on computer keyboard,

Students of our program learn both ways. Solfeggio is helping them to develop good voice and perfect pitch.

[HH]

We don’t use artificial, bad quality accompaniments, because our students play real music with all the chords and multiple sounds from the very first time. These artificial arrangements are usually used to cover poor skills. Weak approaches are teaching kids to play 2-3 keys and cover it with a lot of sounds from computer. But the king is naked! Kids try to play what they learn in front of friends without computer and it sounds awful!
Our program doesn’t use this gimmicked tricks. We are for real. We don’t provide you with low quality keyboards: you have to buy one yourself. You tune the program to use the sound from keyboard/piano and not attacked by electronic noise.
Our program is not like a robot running in loops. You chose the command and do the training when YOU like it. The program is giving you chance to stop, to look, to see and to understand, what you are doing. You can see your mistakes and to see how to fix them. (I will talk about this in details a bit later)
Student can
1.   Listen to a song by pressing S
2.   Play right hand and left hand would be playing automatically by pressing R
3.   Play left hand and  listen to the right (L)
4.   Play both hands (P)
5.   Hide the notes and learn song by heart. This is absolutely essential and unique feature that is being appreciated by piano teachers/students very much. Nobody before us even thought it is possible to support and lead memorization process in music learning!
So, you may press RH, LH or PH to hide notes of right, left and both hands

I placed here a very interesting video. Once my daughter’s friend was visiting us. Out of curiosity he opened our program and started learning Bach’s Musette pretty quickly,
I asked if we can record his progress and he let us videotape.
He explains a lot about the features of the software during the process. 
BTW, this guy played ORIGINAL version of Bach’s piece. I think, it is pretty amazing footage.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/gageOYLCH2A&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/gageOYLCH2A&rel=1</a>

[HH]

Psychologists say that the visual memory "catches" things more quickly, but the auditory memory holds on to them longer.

What happens if a student makes mistakes during a traditional lesson? The teacher constantly stops him, points out his mistakes and shows him how to fix them. This is fine if the mistakes aren’t ones of coordination. But if the muscles don’t cooperate, demands and appeals won’t help. In fact, this makes things worse – it wastes more time.
   

A computer doesn’t explain – it makes the student work. Computer graphics distinctly point out all mistakes. Seeing the same mistake over and over on the monitor, the beginner quickly understands what it is that isn’t right.  Right there, he tries to play the right way and repeats his attempts until the skill is enforced. Until this is done, the computer won’t let him "pass."

During this time, the ears frequently listen to the right way to play, memorize it, and become a support for the performer. And the vision flawlessly ties the sounds to the music text at the same time.
   

The notes first appear as flower buds, which open up in accordance to their duration. If the key is released early, the blooming of the flower stops. A "dwarf" appears in its place and disappointedly waves his arms. He helps to indicate the mistake for a fraction of a second. These methods don’t only teach  the student to play the right lengths. The program controls the correctness of the hands and fingers in the same way. If not played incorrectly, the little spyders appear at the places where your fingers are, You may see where you are and where you suppose to be.

[HH]

The Computer Keyboard can be a Predecessor of the Piano

The computer keyboard and the keys of the piano are very similar. Both must be used by different fingers, pressed by the fingertips and coordinated into the work of both hands. Understanding this, we decided to involve computer keys in the development of the student’s coordination.

For example, in the game Note Duration, kids play out the songs with only one key: the space bar. Here they learn to play different rhythms, count out loud and differentiate between notes by their lengths. Think of how hard it is to teach a child to play from sheet music while counting rhythm at the same time. Thanks to the computer, the coordination of the hands has been simplified to one key, and the focus is completely directed at the music notation and reading rhythm. The guides of this exercise are coordination and the computer screen, assigning the differences in note length with the help of colors and sounds.

In the same way, the computer keyboard helped to create exercises that allow the beginner to connect the movement of the notes of the music staff with the keys on the piano. With this goal, we don’t use the Up and Down arrows in our games – after all, there are only two directions one can go on the piano: left and right. We tried not to miss a single detail that could help a beginner in his movement of music reading from simple to complex.

Here is the link to DEMO of all our curriculum/ Just click on each icon and find free download on the bottom of the page:

http://www.doremifasoft.com/dopr.html

[HH]

Over the recent years, certain traditions have been established in the organization of computer programs. They should definitely have windows and a menu, which can be traversed with a cursor. Our program has nothing of the sort. It doesn’t resemble any familiar methods of music education at all , nor traditional computer products. Because of this, I often receive negative feedback about its appearance. But what’s most important is that it works!

We didn’t want to overload the screen with windows and other common attributes of an interface. All of that is unnecessary. We swore off the use of a mouse; a toddler has a hard time getting the mouse to go where it needs to. It is much more comfortable to select commands through the computer keyboard. The program has connected all of my methods together, enriching them with animation and computer graphics. It effectively teaches adults and three-year-old toddlers.

Here is a video of 4-year-old Gabby learning Entertainer by Scott Joplin. We 'cut' a piece of the song and mastering it.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/1wxmuA48e0Y&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/1wxmuA48e0Y&rel=1</a>

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