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I am also from the old generation, but I embrace the technology. I put my first steps into the piano World at the age of 63, with a teacher... And I did not like it, I learned nothing and had to do only hand clap and counting endlessly and sing on a childish level. Then I discovered PM and after 2 years I can read notes smoothly, and play. And I practice where and when I feel like it, as free as a little bird. I do not venture to Chopin and the like, but some of the not so difficult pieces I try once in PM, and then I print it off and do it even without computer. Let everyone enjoy what is there without having to break everything down to the ground. If "Bennevis" is so fair now to share his findings in PM here, everyone is happy. And Bennevis, try level 6 method or technique and let us know for sure if it was fun. In my language translated is "Bennevis" I am a fish

I was initially skeptical that it would be of much use for me as an early intermediate player, but I decided to give it a try. It turns out it's been quite useful. The forced metronomic sight reading has been invaluable for me and is like having a proctor every practice session to keep me honest with myself and my sight reading ability.

The ability to add your own music (as well as the nicely graded library of 3000+ pieces of real music of all genres, including a massive classical library, well over 1000) and chop it up in to hands and phrases has been incredibly helpful for me to organize my practice. And again, it acts as a "traffic cop" so I'm less inclined to "cheat" and not really get my reps in on a phrase, or play the parts I'm already good at and don't need as much practice. And the fact that it tracks your progress on each of the chopped up parts is great for record keeping so I don't have a giant mess of part letters and hash marks on my score to keep track of where I am. I can leave the markings for notes from my teacher and my own reminders.

Not trying to insult, and bennevis is a really good member of the community here at PW, however I think based on what they have said, they are speaking from a place of ignorance about Piano Marvel. For example, bennevis keeps mentioning "aural skills" as if that's not something you can get from PM. I think that's because they are unaware that the technique section is about 40% focused on ear training and aural skills. And, as Tyrone mentioned, you are always sight reading real pieces, not randomly generated music, and it pulls from the massive library I mentioned earlier, and bennevis implied that we'd get more from sight reading "real" music from IMSLP. Also, before sight reading you're given a chance to look at the whole score, it's only while the evaluation is going on that you only see two lines, and even then it's 5-10 measures ahead. I don't know about their level, but I can barely read a measure ahead, and from what I've read, even master sight readers read about 4 measures ahead.

So based on that, I'm fairly certain bennevis has never tried Piano Marvel and really shouldn't try to dismiss it because they are unaware of what the app offers. It's certainly fine to offer advice on other styles of learning, but it's not constructive for them to tell us that we will benefit more from those other styles when they haven't actually tried the software we are using.

+1

And then there is the unknowable. I think some people are naturally talented and unstoppable. But how many people drop piano after a few months? What about them? Maybe if people were offered more options we'd have more piano players in this world.

You're right, I've never tried PM. I wouldn't download such an app unless I'm sure it's totally safe and I'm going to use it, having been burnt on other "useful" apps before which affected the function of my MacBook Pro (maybe by taking up too much memory space) such that I couldn't wait to eject them.....only to find that bits of them were still left in (like a virus) that I had difficulty getting rid of. OK, I know I'm not as tech-savvy as most here.......

However, I did 'take a tour' to see what it was about, and all I could see was lots of simplified arrangements (and everyone here knows my morbid aversion to them) and that you can never see the complete score or one full page when playing, and it looks like a colored line keeps following you (or rather, you keep following that line). In other words, it all looks more like a computer game than actual music making as I understand it. And I didn't see any ear training anywhere, nor any specific guidance to help with developing reading skills.

I'm sure that if that's what you started learning on (especially with no teacher), you'll think it's perfectly normal and functional, but I don't. When I read through a score, I form a complete mental & musical picture of it, and it helps me when I then try to play it - from the same score, knowing exactly where the various musical twists and turns are on the pages so that I can anticipate them. Whereas what you get with PM is a score chopped up to make you follow its coloured line, which also allows no room for the slightest rubato (correct me if I'm wrong). Is that music?

But hey, I've never played a computer game (apart from chess) since Space Invaders, so what do I know about current trends?

Well, it's clear that SRF will be useless long term. It's not only not real music, it's not even 10% as good as an Iannis Xenakis piece. However, I do think at my level, it is drilling me on important skills - namely reading intervals and mapping to fingers regardless of the key and hand position, and reading at least one measure ahead. Both of these were complete disasters for me before I started my 4 weeks for intensive SRF work. I've now reached a C- level.

For the last 6 months, I've been working through a particular 12-workbook sight-reading series as part of my semi-weekly piano lessons. However, there is just not enough drilling for me in the series. That's where SRF comes in. Completely uninspirational exercises - like the multiplication table exercises your 3rd grade teacher would give you 5 mins to do - but lots and lots of them. Drill until your pass out. And it indeed works. Just as those multiplication table drills in school.

What does SRF stand for please? Or did I miss it somewhere above?

See here. Google for it and you'll find the website.

There are plenty of full original scores too. But yes, there are simplified arrangements of some things, though so far I've always found the full version too. And if you're in to it, it's nice to have some contemporary stuff to play with, which you don't get on IMSLP.




I still don't see how having the full page while playing is an issue. You're not looking at the full page when playing, and if you're playing a longer piece, like a Sonata, there are many pages, so you don't see the full piece. It's just another page system. I've seen plenty of scores for quartets and the pianist sees only as much as PM shows, and the pianists playing seem to manage fine. The only argument I can see here is that it's useful to be able to examine the complete score before playing, and you can in PM.

If we want to talk about actual relevant limitations, PM has no way for you to mark on the scores or change fingering. Those are actual bigger issues for me, and so far, for the pieces I work on with my teacher, I have paper scores along side PM. The finger issue can be dealt with if you're willing to import your own scores however, though this is far from ideal.

As to the colored line, it's just a visual metronome. Or do you eschew metronomes and conductors because they turn your playing in to a game of follow the leader?




It's in the "Technique" tab, as I said a good 40% or so seems to be ear training and I think it's reasonably well done.






So it appears here you're saying that you look at the whole score ahead of time, as I suspected. Again, the score is only chopped up when you're playing because you aren't needing to look at the whole score while you're playing, and even if it's on paper you don't have the full score at a glance. When you're not playing you can look through the piece at your leisure, complete without any chopping (though you can have it chop if you want to focus on a phrase or hand, something you can't do with paper sheets, or PDFs.)



This is true, and I've come to terms with the fact that I use PM to keep me honest. I'm not planning to use it once I have a piece to near performance ready. Instead, the ability to track my phrases for practice and strictly follow rhythm is useful for developing to the point where I am comfortable performing it. I don't know about your teachers, but mine is pretty insistent my rhythm is spot on, no rubato, until I've learned the piece sufficiently to use the rubato correctly and musically. I'm not going to perform with PM sitting in front of me.

This is consistent with the PM videos on youtube, including the one with the piano performance graduate. PM is used to learn the notes and rhythm, and then it's turned off during the refinement process. Refinement can't be done in PM because actually PM doesn't support a lot of things needed for refining musicality. (phrase shaping, rubato, etc)

Is anyone else having trouble getting SASR to work the last couple days? It gets through one piece then it never shows the continue button at the end and eventually shows a “cannot connect to server” error. I’ve tried clearing the cache and all the usual things.

Also, I’ve been in “completionist” mode and technique 4A-14 says there is a midi file error and won’t start. I want my gold star wahhh.

I switched back to the old version and that is working so I guess it’s that for a while until they fix the new one.

Even from very early on, my first teacher taught me to play musically, even when sight-reading.

For instance, this was the first Mozart piece I learnt (three months into lessons, from Denes Agay's Easy Classics to Moderns):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUEa8ZnyYnc (obviously, minus the extra ornamentation)

We counted the beats aloud (actually, singing the melody while counting) together during lessons, and I was expected to do the same while practicing, so I learnt to play in time right from the start, yet with leeway for the shaping of phrases, and slowing down at the end, just as the pianist did in the video.

Thats why...
Hello PM users! Last night we did a HUGE update to our servers with the aims of making our software much more reliable and secure. Our team has been working around the clock to make sure the switch is as seamless as possible. Please feel free to message us with any questions or concerns and thank you for being our customers! 😀

Do you have Plugin Version 0.0.10.21 ? You can ask it, its lots better then the 0.0.10.20 version.

Tarantella
Prelude in A Major (Op. 28, No. 7)
Prelude in E Minor (Op. 28, No. 4)
Allegro Burlesco [Op. 88, No. 3]
A Curious Story [Op. 15, No. 2]
March in D
Minuet in G Minor
Minuet in D Minor
Polonaise in G Minor (Anh. 125)
Sonata No. 6 in C Minor, III
Minuet in G
Bagatelle in D Major [Op. 119, No. 3]
Sonatina (Op. 36, No. 3)
Sonatina, Opus 36, No. 1
Allegro Scherzando
Curious Story, Op. 138, No. 9;
Bourrée No. 1,
Bourrée No. 2
Sonatina in C Major [Op. 55, No. 1]
Minuet in F
March [Op. 65, No. 10]
To Julie [Op. 118a]
Sonatina (with Tarantella)

This is just a small example of the more than 6000 songs you can learn/play in PM, nothing simplified but the full works. Since you are not so technical (say yourself) and you keep on whining about seeing the full score; On the right side of your screen is a scroll bar, and with your wheel or with the mouse you can shift it and see the whole score before you start playing. Clever found huh?

I don't understand why you're so opposed to simplified versions, if you want to learn something new, you should start simple? A baby learning to walk doesn't start with a marathon either. And you have to think about who uses that kind of online lessons, that goes from children from 5/6 years old to older people 65 + to young adults who play in a band, to housewives who want to learn music in their spare time etc. I find it just clever of PM that for all those different wishes something is foreseen. If you only want to learn IMSLP music, that’s your choise. That makes what the rest of humanity chooses therefore not bad and inadmissible.

We now know that in the good old days everything was better, but let us now please quietly talk about a program we all love and where each learns and enjoys its way. After all, this is what music is about, you have to enjoy it !!!


You clearly don't know what you're missing.

Here is something I suggest. For a long time, since I started piano lessons with a teacher last June, I have not used Piano Marvel to teach me piano but have used it to learn some pieces of my own which I upload to the software. I intuitively felt the system was helping me, but had only anecdotal reports from others that were doing the same that I wasn't alone. It seemed a few of us felt it helped.

Then I saw this video posted:


In the above video, Jordan is a B.M. piano performance graduate - therefore, an advanced pianist - and he sight-reads well (the way that Piano Marvel assesses sight-reading level, his SASR score was tested to be around 900 which is the level of a typical B.M. piano performance graduate and the level of a typical incoming M.M piano performance student). Jordan has only used Piano Marvel once before, and that was to run the SASR test on his sight-reading level.

Here, above, Jordan, who is obviously also too advanced for the piano training in this software, uses the system to roughly learn within about 85 minutes, the first 47 measures of the exposition of Beethoven’s Sonata No. 6 in F Major, Op 10 No 2, which he has not encountered before and which Henle grades as a "Level 7 Difficult." Hard to imagine he could have done as well in any 85 min first encounter, without such a software assisting him and giving him immediate feedback. Quite amazing really.

Take a look at the above video. You can watch a bit of the intro and then jump around to get the idea.

Good ball Tyrone, I didn't want to do so much trouble, some people are so convinced of their right that they are not open to anything else anyway. :p

I hate to say it, but I can easily learn the first 47 measures (which BTW isn't even the full exposition of the first movement) of this sonata in less than 85 minutes from my (paper) score - memorized and performed with complete accuracy, if not total refinement and the nuances I'd like if I was performing for an audience. And I'm no B.M. performance major graduate. The music isn't especially difficult, and anyone who's familiar with Luddy will have played similar figurations and note patterns in many other sonatas, which means it doesn't require much practicing to be able to play it.

I do think you're underestimating the capabilities of pianists who've been playing for decades. There are reports of concert pianists like Mikhail Pletnev who learn complete pieces while on a plane flight (learning and memorizing the music simply by reading from the score, like a book), then straight to the recording studio at his destination to record those works. (Incidentally, it was his 2-CD set of the Scarlatti sonatas, which won the Gramophone Award). On another occasion, he sight-read the piano part of Weber's Grand Duo Concertant to fill up the CD of Brahms that he was recording with his clarinettist partner in the remaining minutes of studio time.

This (in case you think the piano part is easy):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRxVuBd1InE

Anyway, that's all OT.....

Finally, that's the first sensible word you say here in this thread of simple gamers.

To change the subject...

I’ve read somewhere that Piano Marvel’s user interface is old looking and unmodern. I kind of agree. What do you guys think?

Do you think it needs a facelift to be more attractive to today’s savvy tech users? I personally do judge a book by its cover and appreciate a nice user interface.

For me personally it is perfect as it is, clear and uncluttered. I think what you've read was from earlier, when they had in PM an ugly wallpaper background. For me, the interface doesn't matter much, rather a program that works perfectly, than a flashy interface and lots of bugs and errors. Finally, most of the time you just look at a white sheet with notes, the rest is no longer important.