Miracle Piano Teaching System facts for kids
Quick facts for kids The Miracle Piano Teaching System |
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| Developer(s) | The Software Toolworks |
| Publisher(s) | The Software Toolworks |
| Designer(s) | Jon Mandel Henrik Markarian |
| Platform(s) | NES, Super NES, Macintosh, Amiga, Genesis, MS-DOS |
| Release date(s) | 1990 |
| Genre(s) | Music, educational |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
The Miracle Piano Teaching System was a special computer program and keyboard that helped people learn to play the piano. It came out in 1990 and worked with popular game consoles like the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Sega Genesis, as well as computers like Macintosh and MS-DOS systems.
Contents
How Does the Miracle Piano System Work?
The Miracle Piano Teaching System included everything you needed to start learning. It came with a special keyboard, cables to connect it, a power cord, and even soft foot pedals. The lessons were on either computer disks or game cartridges.
Once you connected the keyboard to your computer or game console, you would load the software. Then, you could follow the notes shown on the screen. The main idea was to teach you how to play the piano. It offered hundreds of lessons and was even advertised as a great way to help with regular piano lessons. It was quite expensive when it first came out, which meant not many people bought it.
The system was sold in the United States and many parts of Europe. Interestingly, some of the NES keyboards were later changed to work with personal computers. The Nintendo Seal of Quality on these keyboards was covered up with a piece of plastic.
The sounds you heard from the Miracle system actually came from the keyboard itself, not from your game console. This meant you could use the keyboard to play music even without the console connected!
Fun Ways to Learn Piano
With the Miracle system, students could learn different styles of music, like classical piano, rock piano, or songs from musicals. The system could even figure out how well you were playing and create special lessons just for you.
The lessons were designed to be fun, almost like playing a video game. Instead of using a regular game controller, your piano keyboard became the controller! You would press the right keys to hit targets and improve your music skills.
There were several games to help you learn. In a game called Robo Man, you had to press the correct keys at the right time to build a bridge. If you made a mistake, Robo Man would fall! Another game was a duck hunt where you pressed keys that matched the ducks' positions on a musical staff to "shoot" them. In the Ripchord game, you had to press the right combination of keys for a chord to help paratroopers land safely on a target.
What Happened Next?
Around 1995, the technology from the Miracle system was used in a new computer program called the Piano Discovery System. This new program worked with any MIDI keyboard, including the original Miracle keyboard. By 1997, the Miracle Piano Teaching System was no longer sold, as the Piano Discovery System had taken its place.
See also
- Synthesia
