eMedia Piano and Keyboard Method Volume 1 [OLD VERSION]

The software grades your playing with a percentage score, and gives you details on your errors (if you want them).

Also, it includes short videos of a person playing piano so you can see proper posture and such. Each song comes with (optional) accompaniment, which can make it funner to play (especially with the simple songs).

The keyboard that comes with it (optional) has a solid feel, and is touch-sensitive (pressing harder plays louder). The keyboard plugs into the joystick port (probably on your sound card).


quality product   April 2, 2004
Ilan (ISRAEL)
70 out of 78 found this review helpful

I got this product yesterday and started to learn by it.
after browsing it and using it for the first 17 lessons this is my impression.
what you get in this product is 100% of quality content and less emphasize on look and graphics.
and if you want to learn playing the keyboard, so the quality of the teaching is more important then other features.

the teacher leading the instruction process using video clips and audio tracks, is Irma Justicia MA which is a experienced piano teacher.
after 17 lessons i fell in love with her .it feels just lilke i'm in a real lesson with her.
for my non proffesinal impression this product is good for absolute beginners to the intermediate level.
it is also said on the product that it is volume 1 so probably they are going to issue more products in this piano keyboard line just as they done with the guitar.

cause of the simplicity of the graphics you can use it on any computer,old and new.
but still you get many sophisticated features like interactive feedback using midi cable.

for summary ...GOOD WORK.


As good as it gets   November 5, 2005
D. White (USA)
20 out of 23 found this review helpful

I thought that I could never learn piano on my own. All the material that I ever looked into either didn't have enough information in it or was too complicated for its own good. Because of this software, I am constantly learning new things, and slowly improving my skills as a future pianist. If you are a beginner, you want to buy this software. It's done wonders for me.


Great software   December 2, 2008
Live Robot (NJ, USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

My daughter learned a great deal of piano before we sent her to a music teacher. This is a great software and I specially like the computer rating that tells you where you made mistake. To get 100% marks on the some of the songs are really tough. Overall very satisfied. I wish they make the next version (more advanced stuff).


The method works for me, but the Mac OS X version has bugs.   December 12, 2005
JK (Dairyland)
53 out of 54 found this review helpful

I've been using this piano trainer for about 2 months now, and am up to lesson 100 or thereabouts. I've been spending about 1/2 hour each day with it, on an OS X Mac with a MIDI/USB piano keyboard attached to it. Each day, I start at my "tail" lesson, then work through all of the other ones up to my "current" lesson. Then I do the "tail" lesson again. If I can play it with the computer rating me at 99 or 100%, I declare that I've "passed" that lesson, and move the tail up to the next lesson for the next day. If I don't pass, I keep the tail where it is. At the other, "current", end, I usually move up one lesson per day, unless the current one is particularly challenging. I also usually have one "goof off/preview" lesson where I just relax and try to have a little fun with the next lesson beyond the current one, giving myself a little treat to look forward to. I usually take the weekends off, and only do my lessons if I'm feeling like I want to. During weekdays, I find it is a nice way to just do "something different" after a day at the office, and quickly find myself sucked in; the lesson time passes quickly.

The system has worked quite well for me so far. I've stayed motivated and am making definite and consistent progress.

The program works very well for the most part. Each lesson displays the sheet music, and has a button that plays the lesson as it should sound. Plus, most lessons have video snippets of an instructor giving detailed examples and hints. Most lessons also have a button where you can play accompanied by other instruments. After you play the lesson, the computer rates your performance, from 0 to 100% correct, and shows on the sheet music where you made mistakes (wrong notes, notes played too long or short, etc.).

There are a few bugs in the OS X Mac version. The worst is that the sound volume level for the instructor / example music can't be changed. There's a slider for this in the preferences window, but it doesn't work. The volume is stuck at maximum, so it is far, far louder than the sound coming from my own playing. The other serious bug is that the automatic lesson grader almost always indicates that you've played the final note of the lesson too short, even if you hold it down far too long; this seems to be especially true if the final note is a whole note. The other bug I regularly see is that a window will pop up saying something about the script interpreter crashing. This doesn't seem to cause any problems, but it is annoying. Other than that, the program seems solid. It uses a better piano sound than the one that comes built-in on the Mac; it still isn't realistic like the ones on the Casio and Yamaha keyboards, but it's good enough.