Fancy learning the piano? At home? Without a human teacher? You can coddle your misanthrope tendencies while learning to play an instrument with the Piano Maestro, a piano instruction system that teaches you to play “easier and faster than ever before.” Without human teachers involved.
While we’re not sure if it “revolutionizes” musical instruction like the website claims, it does sound like a helpful contraption. Plus, you can do it at home. At your convenience. While naked. Can’t beat that.
The Piano Maestro is a PC-based learning tool that incorporates both a hardware and a software component. The hardware part consists of a long bar with 48 LEDs lined up across its body that you hook up to your Windows-powered PC via USB. It works hand in hand with the companion software, which displays sheet music, plays a MIDI recording and spurs the corresponding LEDs on the rod to light up.
How do you end up learning? Well, each LED on the bar lines up with the keys on standard-sized keyboards when you put it on top. When specific LEDs light up, you’re supposed to strike those keys in order to play along with the sheet music showing up on the screen. Basically, it turns your regular keyboard into one of those learning pianos with built-in guide lights, provided you can spare a computer in the process.
Most people I know who play instruments just did a lot of uppers in their teens and killed their extended awake time fiddling with things that made sound. Turns out you can actually learn it from a gadget, too, which is way less stressful than gobs of drugs. The Piano Maestro is available now, priced at $169.
