Features

• Interactive Keyboard gives you all you need to know to play like a pro
• Fully MIDI compatible
• System Requirements -Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP, Minimum Hardware -Pentium Processor, 16 MB RAM, 2x CD-ROM, 16-Bit Sound, 256 Color Display, 20 MB Hard Disk Space

Features

• Features 114 step-by-step lessons by famous bass instructor John Arbo - follow along as he teaches you the basics
• Begin learning about triads, fills, syncopation and other bass techniques
• Create your own bass lines in no time at all
• Over 200 songs and exercises help you improve your bass-playing
• Play your favorite songs by the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan and other legends

Features

• Features 24 engaging lessons that introduce the basics of music theory
• Covers lessons like pitch recognition, learning key signatures and basic ear training
• Learn the single staff and Grand staff, sharps and flats, and much more
• Compose your own original music using the innovative Music Doodle Pad

Features

• Write your own guitar solos on the Computer fretboard
• Use chord progressions in four styles -Pop, Jazz, Country, or Folk
• Live Harmonies lets you hear the harmony as it goes with the chord progression
• Digital Audio Recording lets you hear your new creation
• Use the built-in sequencer to record your melodies

Features

• Begin reading music notation in just a few lessons
• Instructor Hugh Berberich walks you through 150 lessons -- watch his hands and duplicate their movements as you learn to play
• Learn to play 75 popular songs, through the video-animated lessons
• Work with a full recording studio -mixing boards, level meters, transport function and other high-tech aspects of recording yourself
• Understand important piano concepts like intervals, bars, and sharps & flats -- all explained in a clear and concise manner

Amazon.com Review

Capably hosted by respected session guitarist and veteran instructor Ross Bolton, Voyetra Turtle Beach's Teach Me Guitar Deluxe won't teach you how to solo like Carlos Santana. The program instead distills the most important elements of beginning and intermediate rock guitar into bite-size bits that promote extensive hands-on practice and self-discovery. Like a Reader's Digest Condensed Book, it smartly conveys the flavor and styling of its subject matter without overwhelming the user, thus allowing aspiring players to begin the move from bumbling amateur to nimble-fingered virtuoso.

Starting with basic open chords and progressing sequentially through chord variations, power and movable chording, basic melody positioning, scales, picking techniques, and several standard blues and rock progressions, Teach Me Guitar Deluxe features 30-plus lessons amid a wide variety of compelling visual accompaniments. Students have access to such perks as animated fretboards, graphic fingering demonstrations, charts, and live-environment music videos featuring Bolton and his made-for-software band. While only four complete songs are offered, each is paired with an impressive tutorial that covers every note from the beginning of the introduction on through the verse, chorus, solo, and conclusion.

Fortunately, the program is designed to adapt to varying abilities. At any point during the proceedings, players may opt to loop and repeat a given passage, decrease or increase musical tempo without affecting the key, skip sections that seem too simplistic, or consult the enclosed chord dictionary booklet for more comprehensive fingering instructions. Teach Me Guitar Deluxe distinguishes itself from Voyetra's earlier Teach Me Guitar in several respects, the most notable of which is an electronic tuner that allows you to connect your axe to the computer's sound card for error-free digital setup. The package also includes a new audio-visual presentation of its printed chord dictionary, a hard-copy tablature pad, and a trio of guitar picks. Sadly, all three of the latter are equally thick and perhaps a bit too stiff for some.

Those who already know their basic chops and feel the need to move on to advanced soloing and phrasing are advised to check out Voyetra's more sophisticated Teach Me Rock Guitar or Teach Me Blues Guitar. Yet rookie and sophomore players wanting to supplement their learning curve with a grab bag of the essentials should find Teach Me Guitar Deluxe a helpful, enjoyable, and easily navigable instructional aid. --Gordon Goble ... Read more

Reviews (1)

All flash and no real learning!
I bought 2 CDROMs from this company, piano for my kid and guitar for myself. Neither does a very good job of teaching. This one is by far the worse of the two. My biggest problem is the lessons are very scattered. You are expected to go from point A to point D, skipping B and C. The playback on the songs isn't very flattering, as it is MIDI with no real guitar sounds. The instructor is straight out of the eighties with his big hair, so if anything I got a good laugh. ... Read more

Features

• Offers the first 40 lessons from eMedia Guitar Method
• Full-motion video demonstrates important guitar fundamentals
• Learn to tune the guitar, hand positionings, easy chords, and more
• 20+ songs taught with notation and variable-speed animated fretboard
• Includes automatic tuner, metronome, recorder, and chord dictionary

Features

• This complete resiurce features over three hours of multimedia tutorials, covering every subject for beginning or advanced users
• Understand the basics of music theory -- song structure, arrangement, transitionsand more are fully covered
• Get step-by-step instructions on every aspect of Reason 2.0 - build percussion loops, write synth basslines, and learn about synthesis
• Work with new graintable synthesis options, advanced sampling and pro sequencer tools
• Open up a tremendous range of musical possibilities for yourself with this helpful tutorial!

Features

• Beginners of all ages will learn the essentials of the guitar, and begin playing in no time
• Easy-to-follow lessons introduce reading guitar tablatures
• Learn all the chords and scales, and some cool licks for acoustic or electric guitars
• Several different types of guitar playing are introduced, from country picking to Spanish flamenco
• Multiple exercises reinforce skills, as you play along with the on-screen lessons

Features

• Slow Speed Audition lets you slow down the CD tempo by 8%, 16%, 32% or half-speed without changing the pitch
• Flash start seamlessly locates and plays from the cue point
• Multiple loop choices -Single Loop, All Loop and Seamless IN-OUT Loop
• Single and continuous play mode
• Headphone jack for practicing and Line Out for recording your performance

Features

• In-depth instructions for beginners -- 10 lessons for complete beginners, plus 50 instructional clips for better technique
• Understand guitar topics like fingerstyle, classical play & chord structures
• Advanced instructions for inversions, circle of fifths, scales, modes, transposing and arpeggios
• Comes with digital dictionary of 1,260 playable chords
• Use backup tracks for 9 musical styles

Reviews (1)

Excellent.
I learned how to play a few songs in only a few weeks. It was really helpfull and informative. I'd recommend it for anyone. ... Read more

Features

• Slow Speed Audition lets you slow down the CD tempo by 8%, 16%, 32% or half-speed without changing the pitch
• Flash start seamlessly locates and plays from the cue point
• Multiple loop choices -Single Loop, All Loop and Seamless IN-OUT Loop
• Chromatic tuner
• Powered by 4 AA batteries(not incl) or optional AC adapter

Amazon.com Review

Voyetra's Teach Me Piano is an excellent choice for the beginning or intermediate piano student. With a slick, intuitive, and highly graphical interface and several dozen musically intelligent piano lessons, this CD-ROM makes it fun and easy to learn music with any MIDI-compatible keyboard or piano. A standout feature here is the highly effective interface, which sports a visual music room with the piano--and uses piano keys themselves to reach major program features. (Younger users should be able to learn to click on the right objects to get going.)The heart of this title features over 60 lessons, including the fundamentals of reading music and solid, beginning piano technique. You'll learn basic fingerings, scales, intervals, and the essentials of music notation. A library of some 75 songs--including traditional and folk tunes, with plenty of short classical pieces in a good range of difficulty--gives you something to practice. The best thing about the instruction has to be the videos that illustrate proper pianistic technique. A piano expert shows you all the correct positions and fingerings in real-time and full-motion video with sound. It's just the sort of thing that can lead to good habits for new players. As you go forward in the lessons here, you'll master playing in musical keys with up to three sharps or flats. The songbook feature breaks out your library of tunes, which you can work on separately outside of the lesson format. You can search for pieces by genre, composer, and level of difficulty.

With its focus on teaching piano from the ground up along with "real" music notation, this CD-ROM title will be a winner with any aspiring music student who's serious about learning the piano. Teach Me Piano has visual polish and plenty of musical expertise to offer anyone, whatever your age. --Rich Dragan ... Read more

Reviews (17)

Teach Me Piano
Having just purchased a used piano for my daughter, I decided to attempt to learn it also. At the age of 35, I didn't want to take beginning piano lessons so I purchased the above software, Teach Me Piano. When you consider the average cost of weekly piano lessons, this software really does pay for itself after a few lessons. I found it easy to use, however I would strongly recommend you only buy it if you have your computer relatively close to the piano in question. Laptop which you could sit on the piano would be preferable. The interactive portion of the lesson really requires a good quality microphone. You must be self-motivated to get anything out of this.

Just started using it
Obviously, installation woes. I expect it to be very buggy, it looks like it's made with some kind of demo-making SW rather than coded from scratch. Could not get it to work under Windows XP on an AMD setup (Athlon XP/Asus MB/Audigy), works fine so far under Windows XP on a P4 setup (Dell 8300 w/SB5.1). Looks like, as of 2004, most of the Piano Teaching SW programs out there that use a MIDI KB are obsolete, there's this one, Piano Suite, and eMedia Piano & Keyboard left? Those are both twice as expensive. Can somebody compare them? I see that the Piano Suite people are suppressing some bad reviews with their lawyers and it might be as old as this one (XP isn't mentioned in the OS list), and I see that the emedia one is the same company as a very well reviewed guitar program and is brand spanking new and modern (mentions OSX 10.2 in the mac version and XP for PC), but I haven't seen many reviews.
The consensus so far is, it works best on older OSs (98se ets.) might not work at all under XP or 2000 depending on your setup, and when it works, is pretty good. You know what? I'm gonna get the emedia one too and compare sometime.

Great introductory piano lessons
I am in my mid thirties and I had never played a musical instrument in my entire life. Two weeks after installing the software I am well on my way to playing my first complete song by devoting about 45 minutes every day to the lessons. Great software, and it does work fine on Windows XP and the MIDI interface of a Sound Blaster card.

Learning all over again
My husband took piano lessons when he was a kid - his mother made him. Sound familiar? Out of nowhere he starts talking about learning again so he purchases these cd's. He's really excited and is literally on the computer every night listening to the cd's and playing his portable piano. Okay, so how many times do I have to listen to 'The Entertainer' ring through the house (sigh)??? Well, he's actually gotten very good at playing, and he's moved on to some other songs (thank goodness!). My husband is not one who reads a lot so the cd's really are great. I would recommend this to anyone who would like to learn the piano all over again!

Not compatible with Windows XP
Beware!! You cant use this program if you have or upgrade to Windows XP! Voyettra website states that ther is no patch or download available. But, they do recommend spending the extra 29.00 to upgrade to the "Deluxe" version so that you can use it in XP. This is from their website... "If you're using Windows XP we would recommend upgrading to "Teach Me Piano Deluxe" on our website:" Very poor customer support. I guess Ill be buying software from another company from now on. ... Read more

Amazon.com Review

In essence, Keyboard Coach is a highly skilled and very patient piano teacher. With the help of this admirable new learn-to-play CD-ROM, even the most banana-fingered of pianists could end up doing a passable impression of a keyboard virtuoso.

Using the latest high-tech gizmos such as video sequences, a computerized metronome, and onscreen notation, Keyboard Coach takes the would-be pianist from the simplest one-bar boogie through the execution of fairly complex rock, pop, country, and classical tunes. On the way, the Coach also spots your mistakes, gives you hints on fingering, and helps you polish your style with video clips. Keyboard Coach will also slow down the tunes when things get a bit tricky, or take you through the actual construction of a keyboard if you're wholly mystified. And when you're finally ready to hit the ivories, the Coach will provide orchestral and percussive accompaniment to your joyous vamps and riffs.

In some ways, Keyboard Coach is better than any real-time piano teacher: no matter how mangled your scales, Keyboard Coach won't admonish you for skipping practice. --Sean Thomas, Amazon.co.uk ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Review dated Jan. 27 contains incorrect information.
Because of the subject review, I sent a message to Charanga.
Here is their response:

Each of the points it makes is absolutely untrue. Finger placement is not only demonstrated it is demonstrated in 2 different ways ie with video, and with photographs. How to read music is taught very patiently right from scratch. An entire Level 1 Module with 10 lessons is totally devoted to learning to read music. After that, each time a new note, note value or rest is introduced it is done one at a time with an accompanying tune or tunes to help reinforce the learning of the new music reading element. Keyboard Coach goes to great lengths to patiently help people learn and has received only very favorable reviews from everyone who has genuinely used it.

beginner software
This was confusing for an 8 yr old who wants to learn to play. It didn't show how to place fingers on keyboard, went on from the assumption of knowing finger placement and how to read music already.

It really, really, works.
Never having had either piano or keyboard lessons, I was apprehensive about learning to play my keyboard by myself through a software program. I was pleasantly surprised. Keyboard Coach has 25 individual lessons to choose from, starting with how to use the program. I really liked the easy way you are shown how to connect your keyboard to the computer to monitor the interactive lessons ( I was not looking forward to that part ).

The opening screen looks like a winding ribbon with multiple lessons. There are five rows on this ribbon with five lessons in each row. Click on a box on the ribbon to open that lesson. The lessons offer both written and video/sound clips. The clips can be viewed in a small window or full screen, and range from explaining how the plethora of buttons on my keyboard work,to observing correct finger placement to mimic -- and actually play a song.

Additional stuff includes what they call Cool Band Trax, or "music missing the keyboard" where you can practice for a real audition, or like me just pretend.

If you own a keyboard collecting dust and you have never taken a lesson before, Keyboard Coach is going to make you feel like a star. ... Read more

Amazon.com Review

Are you a keyboardist who wants to explore the full potential of your MIDI synthesizer? Turtle Beach's Computer Music Starter Kit provides an excellent introduction to MIDI and sound synthesis as well as some powerful sequencing software that allows you to record and edit music on your computer.

This package consists of two parts: the Starter Kit and MIDI Orchestrator Plus. The Starter Kit covers installation of the software, hooking up your keyboard to the computer, and a detailed tour of the applications. The software for the entire package is loaded through a single CD-ROM, and the direction manual is very easy to follow. MIDI Orchestrator Plus is the orchestration software that performs sequencing, editing, and multitrack recording functions. Because of its size and complexity, it has a separate instruction manual, though the software is on the same CD-ROM as the Starter Kit.

The Starter Kit has a tutorial section called Understanding MIDI and Synthesis, which gives a thorough explanation of synthesized sound and the evolution of the MIDI system. It also offers JamGrid, which is essentially a beat box with an assortment of standard rhythm tracks (Latin, jazz, reggae, etc.) that can be played along with or manipulated to make new rhythm tracks.

MIDI Orchestrator Plus is a powerful sequencing program that allows you to compose, edit, score, and record music. Its layout is very intuitive, and both the manual and the help features are very clear. The demo songs included show off Orchestrator's big bag of tricks and give you a number of preset rhythm tracks to work with. Whether you are a MIDI beginner or a semipro, Orchestrator offers professional features that are easy to use. --Matthew Kohut ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Good, bargain for those with floppy-drive keyboards.
The cable didn't work, but if you have a floppy-drive on the keyboard, it's not necessary. I have already made a bunch of tracks. I really like this product. Its easy to use if you are thorough with music and notation. This is the best MIDI software I can find cheap. I also got jamgrid with this kit. I like the MIDI Orchestrator, but not JamGrid.

Software company not upfront with marketing package.
I used voyetra orchestrator for over 5 years. I think it was a great learning tool for both digital audio and midi. I record 100% digital and wanted to replace my older version with a newer one. I found this starter kit and thought that it was basically the same as I had before because I looked all over the box and couldn't find anything that said it only includes 4 digital audio tracks. (how can anyone get started with two stereo channels?). I wouldn't have purchased it if I would have known that. Now I am stuck with it. If all a person does is midi, I guess this will work, but if you want to "start" incorporating digital audio, you should buy something else. I don't enjoy it when companies try to slide one by it's customers by not listing important info that should be disclosed even if it ends up hindering sales. shame on those Marketing people!

Misleads on included cable
I agree with the Jan. 3rd 2003 reviewer. The enclosed cable will not work with my 2002 Dell laptop.[] This is double the price of the Software, which, by the way is OK. If the correct cable(s) were included, the package as a whole gets 4 stars...

Disappointed with this product
If you have a newer computer using USB connections, don't buy this kit. The cable they supply won't work, and you have to find a USB to MIDI adapter somewhere else. I got fooled when I saw it was designed for use with Windows XP, and didn't realize that they meant it could be used by older computers that have upgraded to XP.
So, I've got to spend more money. ... The software is useless without the right cable connection.
I was also disappointed to learn from the manual that their software won't convert the MIDI files to .WAV format for creating my own CDs. Voyetra recommends you buy some more of their software ("AudioView") to do that job.
This product may have some value if you have an older computer, but it is not what they claim to be. It does not include "everything you need to create great sounding music..."

Great Value for Beginners
For a little extra money, you get some very powerful software that allows you to easily write music, save to MIDI file, edit your existing MIDI's and provides a MIDI cable to connect your music keyboard. If you have some downloaded MIDI files, you'll get a kick out of turning on and off tracks or making your own remix. Pumping the MIDI files through an external MIDI source via the included cable (I used a Yamaha EZ-30) produced incredible results. It even takes MIDI files and converts them to sheet music which you can print out and save! For getting your feet wet in digital music, there's nothing I've found that's better or more robust. However, if you don't have an external MIDI source, then you won't get the maximum benefit from this bundle. ... Read more

Features

• Interactive program for learning to play piano or keyboard instrument
• 2 CDs, one to help learn to read and play music, one to play by ear
• 10 interactive learning and activity areas; 14 interactive music games
• Learn to play melodies, rhythms, and entire songs by ear
• 120 music pieces at 3 skill levels; illustrated "learn to play" library

Reviews (1)

Bass
Being a young musician, and not knowing very much about playing bass, this program was very usefull to me. I was pretty much looking for something that would allow me to plug my bass into my computer for recording purposes but I also learned a lot from the lessons. A great buy. ... Read more