Learn To Play The Piano, Locate teaching software and keyboard Options

[xparrot]

About ten years ago, a work friend purchased a piano keyboard and software package that taught him how to play the piano. I've tried emailing him to get the name of the product(if it still exists).

So my question is, is there a keyboard/software teaching system you are aware of that can teach me to play the piano?

This will be hooked up to a dual 2Ghz G5 (should it ever arrive) with 2GB of RAM running OS 10.2.6 (10.3 when it comes out).

Should I purchase a keyboard separately from the software?

-Kirk

[PeeBee]

'Learn to play the piano' programs have come and gone over the years and none of them have done much to change the face of music education. If you want to play the piano I recommend you get a piano teacher. If you want to aquire keyboard skills good enough to input into music software/midi you might consider one of the keyboards that has onboard 'lessons', for example the Yamaha PSR350. You can probably pick one up secondhand by now and when you get good you can still use it as a midi input device - even output, although you mustn't expect it to sound like a decent synth or anything.
If you are serious about wanting to perform you just can't beat one-to-one with a teacher, but choose someone who wants to help you learn rather than someone who wants to show off.

[xparrot]

What about something like this?

http://floridamusicco.com/evolutionmk361c.htm

It says it's Mac OS X compatible, yet I can't seem to find any validation

-Kirk

[PeeBee]

Hi Kirk
This certainly looks like a lot of toys for the money! I'm not sure that you will get that many good sounds that you can use for output but there are plenty of plug-in VST instruments available.
Before you buy it's worth emailing them with details of your kit and get reassurance that the software is good for your mac as there have been problems with some OSX machines not being OS9 bootable which means they can't use some versions of Cubase.
If you go to mac support and navigate to Article ID 86209 and see if your computer is here.
Good luck. If you buy it, let us know how you get on.

[formatj]

What about something like this?

http://floridamusicco.com/evolutionmk361c.htm

It says it's Mac OS X compatible, yet I can't seem to find any validation 

-Kirk

The evolution keyboard is OS X compatible.
The "Piano Suite" software only runs on windows, not Mac OS 9 or OS X.

[xparrot]

I wrote to Florida Music about the software. Sure enough, it doesn't run in OS X. They suggested another product that should be released soon.

http://www.floridamusicco.com/pianokeyboard.htm

This looks good to me.

[BusError]

All Evolution kit is hardware compatible with Macs under OSX, but it's true the software package is light. I made them a version of "MusicPlanet" but that's a toy, not a music program.

But, there definitly are things in the pipe :-)