I Can Play Piano System -

Customer Reviews:

piano basics made fun!
This product is amazing. My 5 and 8 year olds can now read music and play the piano better than I could after years of lessons. The product teaches the kids to read and play music in an intuitive fashion so that there is no learning stress that so many of us remember from the dreaded piano teacher. We find the kids can now SITE READ music at about a level 2 when they are presented with standard music books on our family's main piano, and that is without any lessons yet! Adults who lament that they quit piano lessons are a dime a dozen, and I think lack of an enjoyable instruction medium (until now!) was the culprit for most of us. Tremendous advance with this product, and I bet over the years it will change basic music instruction techniques for children. I certainly hope so!
--2006-11-27

I don't see how anyone would learn to play piano from this
I bought this for a 5-year-old and decided to try it out before giving it as a gift. Good thing I did.

First of all, I thought it was hard to keep up with the tv - and I used to play piano. I had to slow down the tempo just to try to keep up.

Second of all, I don't see how anyone would ever LEARN to play piano from this. It doesn't teach you proper hand positions, nor does it teach you the notes on the keyboard or paper. It has four levels of difficulty and the final level puts the note names on the screen. By the time kids would get to that level, they'd have the song memorized and I doubt they'd pay any attention to the note names.

Third, the games are lame. Fisher Price should have made games that help kids learn hand positioning and notes. The games are boring and don't really teach anything except colors and finding the corresponding colors on the keyboard. I only tried out the cartridge that came with it. The others might be better, but I won't be finding out.
This keyboard MIGHT be ok as a game/toy, but it's not going to teach anyone how to play piano. Plus, you have to be glued to the tv to even attempt to learn. Otherwise, it's just a keyboard.As a keyboard, it's fine, but you can get a regular keyboard much cheaper. I'm definitely returning this and the two cartridges I bought to go with it.

--2006-11-20

Could be improved with explanation of hand position
My daughter asked for this for her 8th birthday. We'd been trying to get her to take piano lessons but she was intimidated by having a stranger teach her. We own a piano and I play, but she didn't want to take instruction from me either as I'm "mommy" and she felt she knew everything already (she likes to work tunes out by ear on the piano). When she expressed an interest in this and it claimed to be able to provide instruction as well as being a toy, we thought it would be a good investment and serve both as entertainment and a teaching vehicle. Unfortunately, it is lacking a bit in the teaching area. There is no instruction regarding hand position on the keyboard (a basic concept in piano). The idea is that the kids hunt and peck for the right colored key to be able to earn points in the software game. If they get the right colored key, they end up playing the tune. According to the theory behind the software, they are eventually going to be able to transfer that hunting and pecking to reading real piano notes and being able to play the piano. However, without understanding hand position and playing keys with the correct fingers, their piano playing will be like typing with the hunt and peck method on a typewriter/computer; it gets the job done but not in the quickest fashion and not with the best accuracy. It certainly isn't going to give them any foundation for playing music that requires anything more than playing single notes (hard to do chords with two index fingers).

They could improve it simply by coming out with a cartridge that contains some instruction on hand position and some simple games to reinforce it. Otherwise, it isn't much better than just tooling around on your own on a piano without any help. Of course, if you don't have a piano, then it at least does give you that opportunity to play around a little. My daughter likes to play with it since it is like a computer game, but as far as really learning much more than she already knows, it really wasn't worth the money.
--2006-10-07

Satisfied User
Great product. I have the earlier version, that I got in Jan of this year. It's something that my kids aged 1 1/2 to 9 1/2 play often. The keyboard I have, a different model, is of great quality and can be used as a general midi keyboard w/o the software. I am assuming this one can do that too.

I didn't know they had Nick characters in their software now, so I'll definitely be buying those additional games. My software is themed (ie fish for one song, kites, caterpillars for others. Characters, I'm sure, will make it better too.

My only complaint was the software was kinda dull, but from the looks of the commercials, this software w/the nick characters should be great.
--2006-09-13

I Can Play Piano System

- Fisher Price