subject: Can Books Compete With Piano Lesson Software? [print this page] Author: John Richards Author: John Richards
The end must be nigh for piano tuition books soon. Now we have Piano Lesson Software which is just so much better and easier to learn from the book published must be quaking in their boots!Well if you?re a complete piano beginner and you?re trying to learn piano from a book then in my experience, you?ll quickly find that you?re going to need some help. Why do I say that? It?s because books are silent. They can only go so far in using a visual medium (the printed notes on a page) to teach an auditory one (the sound and rhythm of music). There?s a distinct and obvious dichotomy there which cannot be bridged by any amount of words or notes on a page.If you've never read music before - and of course if you're new to it then you won't be able to - you really do need to hear it before you try it for yourself. When you are able to hear the actual notes, played as they were meant to be played, then at last you can make sense of what on the page in front of you and the way it sounds. Equally important, you'll find that you can then focus on getting your finger movements right. That, of course, is the whole rationale behind piano lesson software.Many years ago I decided to teach myself piano from a series of books that I found in the piano stool of a house I was renting. They were designed for complete piano beginners and I thought they?d be ideal in getting me started. I remember the first book had me clapping my hands in rhythm and playing a number of notes in a repetitive sequence. Well, as you can imagine, it wasn't the most stimulating. Then the book moved on into trying to teach some simple tunes.Now the big problem when you?re a piano beginner is in handling the two concepts of rhythm and melody simultaneously. They just seem impossible to reconcile at first. Focus on the notes and the rhythm disappears and vice versa. You?re trying to work both of them out from the book without any auditory input to help you. It?s not easy, to say the least. And it?s not effective either, you spend time struggling with things that would be so simple if only you could hear what?s being taught. And you become demoralised as a result.I put off learning piano for many years after that experience. If only there?d been some way in which I could read the notes and hear them played at the same time. Well of course now there is. Piano lessons books might have been around for centuries but that?s because, until now, there?s been nothing better. A new generation of piano lesson software products is here making it easier to learn piano than ever before. You absorb the text, whatever it might be, you look at the notes as they are written down and then you just click a link to hear them being played. Once you hear it, the whole thing falls into place. It?s so much easier than struggling with a silent document. The result is that the whole learning process is speeded up at least tenfold and you can concentrate on what really matters ? making music! About the Author:
For beginners, the teach-yourself approach is very effective. You learn at your own speed and learn in your own way. The most popular piano lesson software is featured at http://www.pianodetective.com where you can read real user experiences on the different packages available.
