Play Piano 
Review by Brenda Viera / Alamo PC

 First, was the exceptional bargain being offered by Reveal and local computer stores. It's expandable, three-octave MusicStar Keyboard with MIDI cable is a steal at $49.95 and includes a $40 manufacturer's rebate. No aspiring Beethoven should pass this up.

 Then, in place of a demanding, strict and otherwise humorless piano teacher, to whose house you have to drive to for an hour's worth of misery, try Play Piano, by Midisoft. It offers a series of piano lessons aimed at making the beginning and intermediate pianist familiar with finger placement on the keyboard, knowlegeable of basic music theory and challenged by the task of mastering 40 diverse songs included on the CD-ROM. The songs range from Beatles to Bach to kids' favorites. Each is rated for difficulty.

 Play Piano keeps track of each student's progress through the lessons which are designed around a song selection. Songs are divided into segments with the sheet music displayed at the top of the screen and a keyboard with animated hands poised at the bottom of the screen. Notes are numbered for correct hand position. The lesson begins with slowly playing the right hand notes first, with no rythym, then with a metronome and lastly at a normal pace. The left-hand lessons follow the format, too. The final test of success comes with playing the entire selection with both hands.

 Assuming students do better with encouragement, a pleasant female voice commends the student after a successful performance or gently suggests that the student had problems with the segment and should try playing it again. Red editing on the sheet music even indicates exactly where the aspiring pianist tripped up. Other options include seeing a video version of a true maestro playing the song, practicing without being tested, playing with orchestral accompaniment or importing one's favorite song to learn into the software.

Well, if I thought the computer would understand that I was a not a truly practice-oriented student, I was absolutely wrong. The Play Piano 'teacher' might not be standing over my chair ready to smack my fingers should they go awry, but boy is this faceless female instructor a stickler for playing a song segment over and over again until it's just perfect...in her mind, not mine. I could not find a way to progress in a lesson without getting the unrequited approval of my computer piano teacher, although she would let me try another song, all the while reminding me that I had an unfinished lesson. If I thought I was going to ace this instructional software in three months or less, I've totally blown my goal. Suffice it to say that Play Piano for some could probably be mastered in a month, but I now know that at my speed, I've got at least a year or two worth of lessons to work on, and I can always practice until I'm perfect with my own favorite songs.

 Unfortunately, the same verbal and oral comments are repeated for every success and failure, and like my original piano playing experience, the repetitive voice cajoling me to play the segment one more time, eventually was a turn-off...for this lesson.

Overall, I liked the format of this piano tutorial. It offers a varied selection of music to learn and plenty of pointers along the way. I am disappointed that it does not try to emphasize learning the notes except in the theory section. The sheet music is only keyed by finger placement numbers.

Installation of Play Piano was a breeze with its clearly written instructions in the manual and via its on-screen promptings. To save memory, the video demonstrations, showing a pianist playing the songs, can be bypassed. This software requires Windows, 8 MB of RAM and 18 MB hard drive space, Windows compatible sound card or MPU-401 MIDI interface card, MIDI-equipped piano or keyboard and MIDI cable, mouse and 256-VGA graphics card. Play Piano retails for $39.95.