Disklavier

Jeff,

No offense was taken.  I just wanted you to understand that I was the 
only one who had mentioned bugs in the "Teach Me Piano" software.  

I would strongly urge you to consider the Voyetra "Teach Me Piano" 
program.  Even with its bugs, it is an excellent software approach to 
learning the piano and to enjoying the process when coupled with a midi 
keyboard like a disklavier.  I believe that it is the best of the 
software available for learning piano in spite of its bugs.  I only 
mentioned the bugs because I did not want anyone to feel that this 
program was perfect.  I think there is a lot of room for improvement in 
piano instruction software using midi information.  If I were a 
programmer and a better pianist, it would be a problem that I would 
tackle.  

Again, I think that the "Teach Me Piano" software would be excellent for 
your purposes described below.  However, for editing, transcribing, etc. 
I would recommend other software packages such as PowerTracks by PG 
Music (http://www.pgmusic.com/) or one of the sequencers in the Cakewalk 
family, e.g. Sonar (http://www.cakewalk.com/professionals.asp).  If you 
are interested in having accompaniments automatically generated by 
computer to match your acoustic piano melodies or you just want to have 
a barrel of fun with music, there is no finer program for either of 
these purposes than Band-in-a-Box by PG Music (also described on the web 
site link above). If you are interested in notating music (as well as in 
the midi playback) of the scores then Finale or Sibelius are excellent 
pieces of software (although rather expensive).  You can read about 
these at: http://www.codamusic.com/coda/ and 
http://www.sibelius.com/cgi-bin/home/home.pl. Finally if you are 
interested in scanning in sheet music and then having it play back on 
your disklavier as a midi file, an excellent program for this purpose is 
Smart Score (http://www.musitek.com/).  

We are most fortunate to have all of this software and it has added 
immeasurably to my enjoyment of the disklavier.

Tom

yamahamale wrote:

>Hi Tom, I didn't mean to offend you by saying "people out there"
>Maybe I should have investigated the posts a little more closely. 
>Sorry about that. I was hoping I had found a program to use. The 
>"Teach Me Piano" sounded ideal but it dosn't seem like this would be a 
>program to have if it has so many bugs. I was anticipating on finding 
>that there would be a lot of excellent software on this subject. I've 
>been playing , on and off, since I was a child. Thought I'd find some 
>good software to help me get my bearings back again with timing and 
>notes. I have an SY77 but haven't delved into software or touched the 
>SY in a couple of years. Now that I've got more time and waiting for a 
>Disklavier to arrive, I thought this would be the perfect time to 
>start shopping the software selections. I'm looking at printing, 
>transcribing, mixing, editing etc.
>  Curious as to why they haven't fixed the bugs. You'd think it would 
>be easy for them. It's a shame cause the features it has sounds like 
>it would be a great program. Maybe you are right and the speed of the 
>informaion flow is too great for the computer to process, causing the 
>bugs to happen.  Have you tried it on one of the newer and faster 
>chips that are out? They've come a long way on speed in the past few 
>years.
>Jeff
>
>
>--- In disklavier@y..., Tom Wheeler <tnwheeler@n...> wrote:
>  
>
>>Jeff,
>>
>>I think I am the only "people" talking about the bugs in Voyetra's 
>>"Teach Me Piano" software. The bugs in this software do not crash 
>>    
>>
>your 
>  
>
>>computer.  I actually made a list of all of the bugs that I had 
>>identified in the program about 1.5 years ago and sent it to 
>>    
>>
>Voyetra, 
>  
>
>>but they chose to ignore it and introduced a "Deluxe" edition of 
>>    
>>
>"Teach 
>  
>
>>me Piano" which only added some games and a few other features 
>>    
>>
>mostly 
>  
>
>>targeted at children while leaving all of the lessons in the 
>>    
>>
>original 
>  
>
>>version unchanged in the Deluxe edition.  Unfortunately, this meant 
>>    
>>
>that 
>  
>
>>the bugs are still present.
>>
>>"Teach Me Piano" is capable of working with any midi instrument, 
>>including the disklavier, to "grade" a students performance.  You 
>>    
>>
>are 
>  
>
>>graded on both your rhythm accuracy and on your pitch accuracy.  In 
>>other words you are graded on  whether you played the correct notes 
>>    
>>
>and 
>  
>
>>played them with the correct timing as specified by the time 
>>    
>>
>signature 
>  
>
>>of the piece.  This feature will consistently report very low scores 
>>    
>>
>(on 
>  
>
>>the order of 30-40%) when you are playing both hands and the music 
>>    
>>
>has 
>  
>
>>any degree of complexity.  It simply does not matter how well you 
>>    
>>
>play 
>  
>
>>the piece, it will not be reflected in your "score".  However, if 
>>    
>>
>you 
>  
>
>>play one hand alone and the music is not too complex, the scoring 
>>provides a reasonable indication of your performance quality.  This 
>>    
>>
>may 
>  
>
>>not be a bug so much as a limitation of the midi information that 
>>    
>>
>can be 
>  
>
>>returned by the disklavier and the ability of your lap top computer 
>>    
>>
>to 
>  
>
>>correctly process that information in real time.  I have found 
>>    
>>
>similar 
>  
>
>>scoring problems with Adventus' Piano Suite Premiere software.
>>
>>Other bugs within "Teach Me Piano" that I recall are one of the 
>>    
>>
>musical 
>  
>
>>selections being left out of the Song Book, occasional notation 
>>    
>>
>errors 
>  
>
>>where the note shown in the musical selection is not the correct 
>>    
>>
>note, 
>  
>
>> the fact that in Performance Mode (where you are playing along to 
>>    
>>
>an 
>  
>
>>instrumental accompaniment) the page turn anticipation feature does 
>>    
>>
>not 
>  
>
>>work, and other similar errors.  Interestingly enough, when you are 
>>being graded on pitch, if you play the correct note it is scored 
>>correctly whereas if you play the note in the music appearing on 
>>    
>>
>screen, 
>  
>
>>you will receive an error.  You would think it would have been an 
>>    
>>
>easy 
>  
>
>>thing to have corrected these errors in the notation.  
>>
>>If you are interested in a detailed listing of the errors in "Teach 
>>    
>>
>Me 
>  
>
>>Piano", I'll be happy to send you a copy of the letter (as a Word 
>>document) that I sent to Voyetra about 1.5 years ago.  
>>
>>Tom
>>
>>
>>
>>yamahamale wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>I'm wondering what are these bugs that are in Voyetra "Teach Me 
>>>      
>>>
>Piano" 
>  
>
>>>that people are talking about. Is it something that will crash the 
>>>computer over and over? Is it in every lesson or most? Thanks, Jeff
>>>
>>>--- In disklavier@y..., Tom Wheeler <tnwheeler@n...> wrote:
>>> 
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>>There are  piano instruction software packages available other 
>>>>        
>>>>
>than 
>  
>
>>>>Voyetra's "Teach me Piano" which you may also wish to explore.
>>>>
>>>>Of all of the piano instruction packages that I have considered, I 
>>>>   
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>like 
>>> 
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>>the Voyetra "Teach Me Piano" package best because: I have spoken 
>>>>   
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>personally about a year ago with Mr. 
>>> 
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>>Hugh Berberich who designed the "Teach me Piano"  musical course, 
>>>>   
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>and he 
>>> 
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>>and I both have tried hard to get Voyetra to expand this package 
>>>>        
>>>>
>and 
>  
>
>>>>also to correct some bugs that are in the program.  Unfortunately, 
>>>>Voyetra seems to have little interest in correcting the software 
>>>>   
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>bugs. 
>>> 
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>>Nonetheless, this is still a very worthwhile introduction to the 
>>>>   
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>piano 
>>> 
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>>for serious students.  
>>>>   
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>> 
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>>Tom
>>>>   
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>
>
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