In all of the computer games, included in the Soft Way to Mozart piano teaching software, the sound plays an important part in the differentiation of the music notes by pitch and intervals. During the entire practice, consciously or subconsciously, a player is trained to connect this sound with the corresponding note name, the position of the note on the Music Staff, and corresponding piano key. Before playing a song, the student can pre-listen to the song as many times as needed.

More over, the Soft Way to Mozart software allows conduction of advanced ear training such as Solfeggio, and music dictations for all students, including children and beginners. Such musical ear training is usually attributed only to high music education, and is omitted by most of the piano teaching methods because of its difficulty, or is neglected as a very important part of music study.

Solfeggio

You can hardly work with music elements without naming them, so all music sounds have names. The ability to connect those names to music pitches is the base of music literacy. This means that you can easily read music, "hear" any music in your mind by looking at a music score, and reproduce it by singing or playing. Or you can catch any melody by ear, and write it down using music notation. To acquire this skill, the Soft Way to Mozart piano learning method uses Solfeggio - a very important part of any serious music education. Solfeggio is based on the singing of a melody by using names of music notes. Of course, Solfeggio does not use alphabetical letters (C, D, E, F, G, A and B) for music note names, but names Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti, specially designed for singing, and accepted worldwide for music notation in the last nine hundreds year. The singing of note names helps any beginner to form the crucial musical skill of connecting a pitch of a note with its name, and tying his or her ear together with the voice and brain. The neglect to Solfeggio by most of piano teachers may be attributed to the ignorance of the fact that our music perception involves our vocal apparatus as well as the auditory one - whenever we hear or play a melody, we also sing along with it inside of our mind.

Ear training with Solfeggio is very effective when used with the Gentle Piano computer program, when a student sings music notes while playing a song on the piano. You can choose which hand to play, and sing the melody only for the right, left, or both hands. The special pictures representing note names help even small children name the music notes, and the complementary sound of every note played on the piano provides an ideal pitch for singing it correctly. With our software, a beginner or child is able to practice Solfeggio long before they can actually read music. Singing the song not only improves their musical ear, but helps them to memorize the melody. During this Solfeggio exercise, the student's ear, voice, reading skills and memory are developed and supported together.

For Solfeggio, you can use any of the songs from the Soft Mozart song library. We recommend you start with simple songs with a clearly defined melody in one of the hands, for example, from the song books Songs for Solfegio and Learning Chords in our Song Library.
* Read more about how to practice Solfeggio in the article Teaching the piano with the Soft Mozart software.

Memorizing songs and playing by ear

Before playing a song, the student can pre-listen to the song as many times as needed using the Gentle Piano software program. By hearing the sound of the song, students activate their memory, and prepare their reading and playing skills for a conscious reproduction of the song rather than just the mechanical memorization.

The Gentle Piano computer game has a useful option for helping students to learn how to play songs on the piano by memory. After the student has pre-listened to the song, and practiced to play the song by reading the notes, she can choose the option to hide all of the notes for the left, right or both hands . The student tries to play the song using her memory and musical ear, while this interactive program assists her in difficult places, making memorization and ear training highly productive for students of any level. For ear training, the student chooses a song with a simple and clearly defined melody, pre-listens to it several times, and tries to reproduce it on the piano by memory using interactive support of the Gentle Piano program.

Learning how to play chords

Our piano software is suited for students and music lovers to train them play and to pick up the basic musical chords for different melodies by ear. We recommend that you start to learn the chords with the songs from the song books Songs for Solfegio and Learning Chords in our Song Library. They contain simple songs with a clearly defined melody in the right hand, and a set of basic chords in the left hand. With the Gentle Piano software program, the student can pre-listen to a song, and, using the option to hide the music notes, try to play the correct chords with the left hand to follow the melody.
* Read more about how to learn chords in the article Teaching the piano with the Soft Mozart software.

Writing music dictation

The music teacher may use the Gentle Piano computer game to conduct music dictation. Using this software, a student can pre-listen to a song several times, and even practice it by playing on the piano. After that, the student must write the learned song down, and compare it with the correct music score using the advanced note representation of the Gentle Piano program.

Learning the piano keys by ear

The Guess Key computer game, included in the Soft Way to Mozart software package, teaches the student to find a correct piano key by the note name and corresponding sound of the note. For ear training of an advanced student, you may ask the student to play this game using only the sound of music notes, finding correct piano keys without looking at the computer screen.

* Read more in the article Teaching the piano with the Soft Mozart software.

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