Monique Garcia
Daily Egyptian

For Chris Salter, learning how to play the piano came easy. But
learning how to actually read music was not.

This challenge inspired Salter, a 1983 graduate in linguistics and
music, to develop Piano Wizard, a video game that teaches users to play
piano through a color-coded keyboard and on-screen prompts. The game is
already being sold by major online retailers and should reach shelves by
the end of the year.

While fun and entertaining, Piano Wizard aims at teaching aspiring
musicians how to read music through graduated game play.

In the game's beginner levels, colorful icons or "notes," such as
dinosaur eggs and rocket ships travel on a straight line from the bottom of
the screen toward an on-screen keyboard at the top. When the icons
reach the keys on the screen, players hit a corresponding colored key on an
electronic keyboard, which plugs into the computer.

As the game advances, notes scroll across the screen horizontally,
imitating the lines of the staff and the way music is read. Advanced users
can import electronic music files and play along to learn scores and
arrangements.

"When most kids start playing the piano, they have a 90 percent failure
rate, but it's not the music, it's the way we teach music," Salter
said. "This kind of takes the torture out of it, takes the abstractness out
of learning how to read the musical language."

Salter said he first thought of inventing the game shortly after
graduating from SIUC. He entered the University in 1978 to study
cinematography and began producing films about music.

Shortly after, Salter met piano instructor Don Beattie, who came to the
School of Music in 1979, and began taking piano lessons with the new
faculty member. While Beattie helped Salter learn to play piano before he
graduated, Salter said he never mastered reading music.

Then, a few months after graduating in 1983, Salter took keyboarding
classes to learn how to type. He said the lessons were frustrating until
he played a typing game, and soon he was typing 40 words per minute. It
dawned on him that a piano video game could have the same effect.

After years of consideration, Salter decided to form a business to
develop and manufacture the game. Allegro Multimedia was born in August
2001; following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the dot-com business
bust, finding investors was difficult.

But $3.5 million and a few patents later, Piano Wizard is riding on the
popularity of the video game market. Last year alone, video games made
for a $12 billion industry.

Salter said CompUSA recently placed a large order to sell the game, and
online retail giants, such as target.com and amazon.com , already sell
the game. On target.com , the game retails for $109.99.

He also said a major toy manufacturer is looking into developing the
game further for sales late next year and an infomercial featuring the
game will debut nationally on Wednesday.

Throughout the process, Salter kept his connection with Beattie and
with the SIU School of Music.

This fall, with the help of Beattie, and his wife Delayna Beattie, a
Piano Wizard academy was founded in conjunction with the School of Music.

Comprising mostly of 4- to 8-year-olds from the Child Development
Laboratory, the academy focuses on teaching children to play the piano and
read music through playing the game.

Children work with adult mentors from the School of Music, along with
Don and Delayna Beattie, to learn simple songs on the game. After
practicing the song on an electronic keyboard, children move to actual pianos
to apply what they learned.

The academy and its students are featured in the infomercial, and
students from the Department of Radio and Television are developing a
documentary about the game and the academy.

"It's a wonderful and extraordinary game that will ultimately help a
whole lot of people," Don Beattie said. "It's a wonderful starting point
that allows them to read a dozen pieces a day and helps them become
literate readers of music while still having fun. Music is a language, and
this helps increase their vocabulary."

Last week, 10 children packed the academy's cozy studio space one
afternoon in the Old Baptist Foundation, singing along to "Merrily we roll
along," which they were learning to play on the game.

After stopping for a brief lesson about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and
reviewing music notes, the 3- and-4-year-olds ran to the computers set up
with the game. Perched on booster seats and sometimes the lap of a
mentor, the children played along, getting instant feedback from the game
about their timing and tempo.

"I got a 98 percent!" one little girl shouted out before turning back
to the screen to tackle the song again, hoping for a perfect score.

"Don and I are firm believers that music is a birthright not reserved
for the elite," Salter said. "It should be open to all, not just those
who have access to classical education. Music is something joyful and
joins people at a spiritual level, and allowing everyone to have that is
a beautiful thing."

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