Teach Me Piano™ Deluxe Interactive piano-teaching system You will need the Product ID number from the sticker on your CD sleeve when you install the software. Please keep this number in a safe place and copy it to the line below so you will have it for future reference. Please use this number to register your program on our web site. Product ID Number: _______________________ www.voyetra.
www.voyetra.com Notices Teach Me Piano Deluxe - Users Guide; Version 2.0 Februry 2007 Software and documentation Copyright © 1996 - 2007 Voyetra Turtle Beach, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means or in any form, without prior written consent from Voyetra Turtle Beach, Inc. (“VTB”).
www.voyetra.com Introduction Welcome! Thank you for purchasing Teach Me Piano Deluxe! This program is one of Voyetra’s “Teach Me” music software series designed to bring educational and entertaining music products to multimedia computer users. Voyetra has been in the business of music hardware and software for more than 25 years. Whether you are a new acquaintance or a Voyetra veteran, you will benefit from our long-standing upgrade policy and our excellent technical support.
www.voyetra.com Progress Report shows you how you’re doing … Several students can maintain their own progress reports as they learn to play, so every member of your family can start at a different level and progress at their own pace. Song Book lets you perform what you’ve learned… Easily access the songs you’ve learned, by title, style, composer or level of difficulty. Choose a song and go either to the Trainer Screen to practice or to the Performance Screen to play with background accompaniment.
www.voyetra.com Music Games test your music skills… Reinforce what you’ve learned by playing these fun arcade-style games: 9 Music Quiz™ tests your knowledge of general music topics. 9 Note Blaster™ tests your music reading skills. 9 Rhythm Master™ tests your ability to recognize rhythm patterns. Recording tools let you create your own songs… Recording Station This easy-to-use, MIDI and digital audio recording studio will let you create MIDI songs with your PC and MIDI keyboard.
www.voyetra.com Helpful Tips… Online help is always available… Just click the question mark (?) on the bottom of any lesson screen, or the Help key on the Master Lesson screen.. Keyboard Lessons will keep track of many students... Your entire family can use Teach Me Piano Deluxe and the software will maintain individualized records of each user’s progress. Just make certain that each user always signs in under his/her own name. (NOTE: To add a new student, you must close the program and re-open it.
www.voyetra.com Getting Started Please register your software with us! As a registered user, you may be entitled to special discounts on our other products — but we can’t offer you these benefits if we don’t know who you are! So please take a minute to register your software. And welcome to the Voyetra family! Register on-line: http://www.voyetra.
www.voyetra.com 2. When the Piano Room screen appears, choose “Piano Lessons”, then “Lessons”. Setting-Up Your MIDI Keyboard A MIDI synthesizer or MIDI keyboard is required to fully-utilize the Keyboard Lessons, Songbook and Recording Station. This keyboard must be at least four-octaves long in order to play all of the exercises and songs. A musical keyboard is not required for the Reference sections.
www.voyetra.com Piano Room Screen The Piano Room is the opening screen where you can access each section of the program. Click on the menu item associated with the program you want to use Keyboard Shortcut Keys The following keyboard shortcut keys can be used in the lessons: Spacebar Home Right arrow Left arrow Stops/Plays media elements as an alternative to clicking on the Clapboard (slate). Returns to Keyboard Lessons’ Contents screen. Pages forward within the lesson. Pages backward within the lesson.
www.voyetra.com Keyboard Lessons To load Keyboard Lessons, click the “Piano Lessons” menu item on the Piano Room main menu screen, then “Lessons” on the following screen. In Keyboard Lessons, a professional music teacher introduces you to basic music notation, theory and playing technique through a series of video clips, exercises and songs. With more than 150 lessons and over 100 exercises, there is a full course of study.
www.voyetra.com Preparing to Play One of the most important factors in playing piano is how you sit at the keyboard. You should not have to strain to read the music. Sit on a comfortable chair and place your hands on the piano keyboard. Keep both feet on the floor — no dangling feet. For younger students, place a stool or a stack of phone books under their feet so they, too, can sit properly. When you place your hands down, the keyboard should be slightly lower than your elbows.
www.voyetra.com Keyboard Lessons’ Contents Screen The contents of the Keyboard Lessons are displayed in the full view of the Keyboard Lessons Training Handbook, as shown below. The lessons are divided into six main sections, each divided into chapters with individual lessons. Although you can open any of the Lessons at any time, we suggest that you move sequentially through the Lessons, since the content was specifically designed to build from one lesson to the next.
www.voyetra.com Keyboard Lessons Screens The screens in Keyboard Lessons are summarized in the table below. Pictures of the screens and a detailed explanation of each one is presented in the following sections. Contents Screen The main screen in the lessons section of Teach Me Piano Deluxe. This screen displays the Keyboard Lessons Training Handbook with Section Contents for the lessons. Information Screen Displays the Lesson’s content, including text, graphics, videos and animations.
www.voyetra.com Video Screen The Video Screen contains video examples and tutorials to help guide you through the lessons. So that you’ll have time to “digest” what you have learned, the Lessons do not advance automatically. After a presentation ends — when you are ready to continue on — click the Forward arrow to advance to the next Lesson. Trainer Screen From the Trainer screen, you can practice rhythm, pitch or rhythm and pitch together, with just the left or right hand or with both hands.
www.voyetra.com discouraged. If you find you are having a problem, try slowing down the tempo. As you improve, increase the tempo (see Lesson Tempo in the Performance Options dialog box). Practicing Pitch — Getting the Notes Right The more you practice playing pitches, the better your note-reading skills will become. The Enhanced Toolbar makes it easy to practice pitch. Fingering is very important when practicing pitches. Be sure to play each note using the finger numbers indicated on the musical score.
www.voyetra.com Click Do It when you are ready to perform the song Click See It to hear the piece peformed for you Click Trainer to return to Keyboard Lessons Click the Metronome icon to display the Performance Options dialog box Click the Printer icon to print the score Performance Options Clicking on the metronome displays the Performance Options dialog box. Performance Options can be changed at any time in Keyboard Lesson.
www.voyetra.com Evaluation Screen The Evaluation screen is only displayed after training with Rhythm & Pitch. This screen shows how well you did when practicing. It breaks down the evaluation into specific areas to help you improve your playing. The “Trouble Areas” which you need to practice are listed from the most mistakes to the least mistakes. If you played the piece well, the Trouble Areas section will not display.
www.voyetra.com Selecting a Range Sometimes, a section of a piece may be difficult to master. The Range button lets you practice that section as many times as you’d like. When you are practicing a section from the Evaluation Screen, you cannot change the Range. If you wish to practice only one measure, enter the measure number in both the “From and Thru” boxes. To set the range for the entire piece, click Entire Piece. The “From and Thru” boxes will no longer be available.
www.voyetra.com Chapter Review Screen At the end of each chapter, the Chapter Review screen displays a Progress Report on how you’ve done so far. A summary of what you’ve learned is displayed here Click the chart to view the Progress Report Click the book to return to the lesson’s Contents Menu To Continue to the next lesson, click the forward button Self-Paced Learning As you study the lessons, remember that they are self-paced — you can move along as quickly or slowly as you’d like.
www.voyetra.com Changing the Setup in the Keyboard Lessons During program installation, you were prompted to set up your MIDI configurations. Therefore, it is unlikely that you will need to open the Setup dialog box while going through the Lessons. However, if your MIDI keyboard is not responding when using Keyboard Lessons, check to make sure the settings in the Setup box are correct. See the Sound Check section for more information on setting up your MIDI keyboard.
www.voyetra.com Songbook To load the Songbook, click the Songbook menu item on the Piano Room main screen music, or from the Keyboard Lessons’ Contents Screen. Click Import MIDI to import your own songs into the Songbook The Songbook includes more than 75 songs — classics, folk tunes, holiday and patriotic songs, and more. You also can import your own MIDI song files and print them to your computer’s printer.
www.voyetra.com Importing a MIDI Song into the Song Book The songs you can perform are not limited to those which came with Teach Me Piano Deluxe. If you have songs in MIDI format, you can add them to the Songbook and then print them out, complete with note names. To import a song: 1. Click the Import MIDI button at the top of the screen. 2. Using the Open dialog box, locate the file you want to import. 3. Double-click the desired file name to display the Import MIDI File dialog box. 4.
www.voyetra.com Track-split Option Many times, a MIDI file is recorded onto a single track. This makes it difficult to display as piano notation. If you wish to see a single track notated in the grand staff, use the Split a Track option. To use the Track Split option: Be sure the Import MIDI file box is already open and you have entered the song’s name and composer, set the song style and the level of quantization. 1. Click the Split a Track check box.
www.voyetra.com Printing a Song Any song in the Songbook can be printed—even MIDI files you have imported into the Songbook. To print a song: 1. Double-click on the song’s name to display the Performance Screen. 2. Click the printer icon at the bottom of the screen to display a standard Windows Print dialog box. If you would like to see note names and finger numbers on the print out, click the Performance Options icon and select “Finger Numbers” and/or “Note Names.
www.voyetra.com Musician’s Reference To load the Musician’s Reference, click the menu item in the Piano Room screen. The main sections are: • The Staff • Pitches and Clefs • Rhythms • Barlines, Measures and Time Signatures • Key Signatures • Dynamics • Tempo • Lyrics When you wish to learn more about a particular topic, just click the green, underlined words. These links to other topics help tie-in related concepts and make it easy to navigate through the screens.
www.voyetra.com Keyboard Tour To load the Keyboard Tour, click “Music Reference” on the menu item in the Piano Room screen, then click “History of Keyboards”. From the History of Keyboards Master Screen, click on any instrument type to begin the tour. This section takes you on a guided tour of the origins and evolution of keyboard instruments from the Baroque harpsichord to the modern synthesizer.
www.voyetra.com Understanding MIDI and Synthesis To load the Understanding MIDI and Synthesis Reference, click the “Music Reference” menu item in the Piano Room screen, then “Understanding MIDI and Synthesis”. From the Understanding MIDI and Synthesis master Screen, click on any of the topics and your tour will begin. In this section, you’ll discover that MIDI recording is significantly different than analog or real-time digital audio recording. You’ll also learn about analog vs.
www.voyetra.com Recording Station To run Recording Station, click the Recording Station menu item in the Piano Room screen. Information Display Transport Controls for recording and playback Pan Controls MIDI Tempo Control MIDI Pitch Control With Recording Station you can create songs by recording multiple tracks of MIDI instruments. For instance, you could start by recording a piano part.
www.voyetra.com Using Jammin’ Keys to create background tracks With Jammin Keys (explained in the next section) you can quickly build background tracks for composing your own songs in different styles. By importing these background tracks into Recording Station, you can then add more instrument tracks to create a complete song. Downloading MIDI songs from the Web The Internet is an exciting resource for thousands of MIDI files that you can download and import into Recording Station.
www.voyetra.com 4. Click on the Record button in the transport control area. Before the recording begins, a metronome sound will give you a four beat count-in in the meter and tempo you’ve chosen. The red indicator on the Record button lights up to show you that you are recording. 5. On the fifth beat, begin recording your performance. As you play your MIDI keyboard, notice that you’ll hear the new notes only on the selected instrument sound for the track you’ve enabled. 6.
www.voyetra.com Saving and Loading Recording Sessions To start a new recording session click on the New button. To save a song Click on the Save button and choose a file format. The choices are: • .ORC – Orchestrator format: This is the best choice. It saves all of the information in the file and you can open this file for further editing in Voyetra’s Digital Orchestrator Pro™ sequencer program.
www.voyetra.com MIDI Track Controls Volume Pan Adjusts the volume of the instrument on the track. Positions the instrument sound to the left or right in the stereo image. To turn the knob, place your mouse pointer on the knob and hold the left button down as you drag in a circular motion. Mute Silences the track when the red indicator is lit. Solo Plays this track only, and silences the other tracks when the red indicator is lit. Record Select Instrument Loop Turns on “record mode” for the track.
www.voyetra.com Transport Controls and Displays File Name Display The first line of the display shows you the file name of the current recording session. If you have not yet saved the session on your hard drive, the indicator reads [UNTITLED]. Once you record and save a song, its name will appear in the display (for example, RECSONG1 or MYSONG). Song Location Indicators The song location is the point that is currently playing, or if you have stopped, the point from which playback will begin.
www.voyetra.com Tempo and Key Signature Controls Tempo Indicator The Tempo Indicator tells how fast the MIDI file is playing, in beatsper-second. To decrease or increase the tempo, click the leftfacing and right-facing triangular buttons. Note that tempo will not alter the speed of digital audio tracks. Key Signature Indicator The Key Signature indicator tells how much you’ve transposed the music in semitones. A semitone is one half-step; there are 12 semitones in one octave.
www.voyetra.com Recording Station Exercises Exercise 1: Load, play, and modify a Blues song 1. On the middle right side of Recording Station, click on the folder icon. In the Open window, find the folder window on the right and double-click on “demos”. You’ll see four folders appear below it, containing dozens of files for Recording Station.
www.voyetra.com 11. Click the Record button in the transport controls and sing along with the song into your pre-configured microphone . Once it’s over, press the Stop button. 12. When you press the Play button, you should now hear your vocal (if not, your microphone is not set up properly. See the section called Checking Digital Recording and Playback in the SoundCheck section). Record another vocal on Digital Track 2 if you like in the same manner. 13.
www.voyetra.com Jammin’ Keys To run Jammin’ Keys, click on the Jammin’ Keys menu item in the Piano Room main screen. Select Lead Instrument Information Display and Transport Controls Select Accompaniment style Use the Mixer to adjust volume Click Pads to play sounds Use the Jam Grid to arrange chords and riffs Select Key Signature and Tempo Click keys to play notes with the mouse or use an attached MIDI keyboard Jammin’ Keys lets you build songs quickly—regardless of your musical skills.
www.voyetra.com To start a jam session: 1. Click on the Start/Stop button (it looks like a traffic light). 2. Use your mouse to play any of the keys on the keyboard. There! Now you’re jammin’. To stop the jam session, click on the Start/Stop button again. Everything else you learn in this chapter simply adds variety to how you jam.
www.voyetra.com To turn on Auto Jam: 1. Click on the button that has a little red automobile on it. The blue light turns on to tell you that Auto Jam is active. 2. Click again to turn Auto Jam off. The Improvising Zone The keys on the right play when you click on them with the mouse, just like a normal piano keyboard. This gives you freedom to create whatever melody you can imagine. It also introduces the risk of playing notes that might sound a bit awkward compared to the rest of the musicians.
www.voyetra.com Changing Instrument Sounds Selecting a Lead Instrument The lead instrument is the one you play with the keyboard. Click on one of the 10 buttons in the Instruments section — near the upper left of the screen. You can change your lead instrument at any time. The 10th button is yours to customize. You can assign it to any instrument you choose from the 128 General MIDI instruments — and you can change that assignment as often as you wish.
www.voyetra.com Styles and Variations Jammin’ Keys has many different musical background styles to choose from. Each style has four arrangements, and a set of fills, breaks, and intro/end passages.
www.voyetra.com To start or end a jam session with the Intro/End button: 1. Turn off any music that’s currently playing. Click on the buttons to choose an Accompaniment style and variation, and a lead instrument. 2. Click on the Intro/End button (it looks like a few notes) to start a new jam session. 3. Jam away. You can change instrument sounds, drum patches, accompaniment styles, variations, tempos, whatever — be creative! 4.
www.voyetra.com Transport Display The transport display lets you see at a glance which recorded jam session you are playing and indicates with moving lights when the music is playing. Use the recorder to save your jam sessions and retrieve them for playback. Transport Controls The five buttons in the Jammin’ Keys recorder are similar to those on a cassette tape deck. From left to right, they are: • Load a jam session that you’ve previously saved. • Save a jam you’ve recorded onto your hard drive.
www.voyetra.com To save a recorded jam session: 1. Press the Save button in the Transport controls. The Save As dialog box opens. 2. Type the desired name in the File Name box and choose the appropriate directory for the file. 3. Click OK to save the file. Your file will be saved with the .JAM extension. If you want to use a Jammin’ Keys file in Recording Station save the file in the Orchestrator format (.ORC). To load a previously recorded Jam Session: 1.
www.voyetra.com Jammin’ Keys Exercises Exercise 1: Play a rock jam 1. Select Rock from the twelve Accompaniment buttons on the middle left portion of Jammin’ Keys. 2. To start the jam, click on the stoplight button above the keyboard along the bottom. 3. Experiment with the keyboard by clicking on the keys with your mouse. The first 12 keys change the key of your jam. The rest of the keys act as a normal keyboard. 4.
www.voyetra.com 9. Minimize Jammin’ Keys by clicking on the minus sign at the very top right. 10. From the Piano Room menu, launch Recording Station. In Recording Station, click on the folder icon on the right. In the folder window on the right of the Open window, double-click “demos”, then “w_audio”. 11. Highlight your “myjam.orc” in the left window and click “OK”. You’ll now see Recording Station with your song name showing in the LED-style display on the top right. 12.
www.voyetra.com Music Games Music Games is an arcade-style program that offers a fun way to test your musical knowledge and musical skills. Three games let you test notation skills, rhythm skills and musical knowledge. To run each game, click on the game box in the arcade screen. Overview of Music Games Music Quiz Test your musical knowledge with a wide variety of questions— many from the topics covered in the piano lessons and music appreciation sections of Teach Me Piano Deluxe.
www.voyetra.com Sound Check To run Sound Check, click on the Sound Check menu item in the Piano Room main screen. Sound Check provides an easy way to test and troubleshoot the digital audio and MIDI features of your computer. A series of displays takes you through the testing process step-by-step. If, for some reason, one of the multimedia devices on your computer is not working properly, Sound Check provides troubleshooting tips to help you get your system up-and-running again.
www.voyetra.com Troubleshooting MIDI problems Sound check provides the following tests for checking your PC’s MIDI functions: MIDI Input Test This test lets you see if the MIDI data from your keyboard is being properly routed to your PC. A series of 16 lights corresponding to 16 MIDI channels are displayed on the screen. When you play the MIDI keyboard, one or more of the lights should start blinking.
www.voyetra.com Troubleshooting Digital Audio Problems Some of the basic problems that occur with PC sound functions can easily be remedied by checking the Windows mixer, which lets you control the volume of the different components on your PC’s sound system. To open the mixer, click on the Mixer button at the top right section of the Sound Check screen. Some typical “mixer related” problems include: The sound is too low or there’s no sound at all.
