Musiah – life-changing piano lessons
From time to time, people ask me “what is the difference between Musiah and other online piano lessons?” or “why is Musiah better than other piano lessons offerings?”
This page explains the main differences between Musiah and other lessons, and how Musiah overcomes the limitations of other lessons, making it undoubtedly – the very best piano lessons online.
First, let’s look briefly at what we mean by ‘other’ piano lessons, taking as examples, two of the well-known sites (aside from Musiah) that offer software-based online piano lessons.
Site 1, in summary, is basically a practice tool best suited to students who are learning with a traditional piano teacher. It has limited tuition, mostly by way of a brief tutorial for some but not all lessons.
Site 2 is mainly for what I call ‘dabblers’, those who don’t want to learn piano per se, they just want to play one or two specific songs, they are willing to endure lengthy boring video tutorials and are happy to learn by rote (by copying the teacher / program).
On both sites, students mostly learn in an area that is functionally similar to the Musiah practice area (but with fewer features) in which the app assesses notes and timing (but not to the extent that it requires the timing to be played accurately) and it doesn’t assess duration of notes at all. And that’s it. That’s all those apps do.
On the plus side, which may suit some students, Sites 1 and 2 each offer a large library of songs you can learn (some songs you have to pay extra for), but unless a traditional teacher is helping the student (which is advisable with those products), students tend to end up with very little reading and playing skills even after a few years of using such products (as evidenced when they subsequently try Musiah).
By contrast, Musiah is the world’s first and only AI piano teacher and is designed to replace a traditional piano teacher and achieves this extremely well.
In terms of its syllabus, where Musiah is different is Musiah students follow a pre-set course of lessons / songs that will take students from beginner to advanced level in the shortest amount of time — up to 16 times faster.
To achieve this, Musiah’s syllabus and teaching method were developed, honed and tested with 80,000 students (and 800 teachers) over an 18 year period before being embodied as a software invention!
No other online teaching method and syllabus has been so extensively tested in the real world as Musiah! Through its pedagogical pedigree and proven track record, Musiah provides – by far – the world’s most effective piano tuition and has the following advantages over other piano lessons products.
When most people assess a piano lessons app, they look closely at the first one or two lessons and try to make a sort of snap judgement. For the most part, this approach is actually not too bad because, more often than not, what we see within the first 30 minutes or so is the full extent of what the app has to offer. Not so with Musiah.
Musiah has a profound depth to it that is gradually unveiled as you progress further along your piano lessons journey.
What sets Musiah apart from all other piano lessons apps is… it is modelled in minute detail on a human piano teacher, specifically me (Brendan Hogan, L.Mus.A., A.Mus.A. – Musiah inventor) and the way I would teach you personally if I were sitting next to you.
Intentionally, the early lessons do not include every teaching technique, game or lesson module type. Instead, these things are revealed gradually as you progress through the course, just as would happen if you were learning piano with me personally, which keeps you continually engaged as you advance through the levels.
Just like when choosing a human teacher, you need to place your trust in Musiah which is, as one student recently put it – “almost more human than a human piano teacher”.
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"What you have created is brilliant! Absolutely brilliant. This is a solution that not only meets my individual needs, but actually works. And in an unprecedented way for me, I feel as though I'm being instructed with professional human touch through a software application."
Nate D — Saratoga Springs, Utah, United States
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“Musiah is an incredible learning program. I can’t thank you enough for creating it. I am learning things that I would never have grasped using a book and/or oddly enough with a music teacher"
Liz C — Albany Creek, Brisbane Australia
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Thanks to the latest AI technology, Musiah is aware of all the mistakes you make including whether you…
• played additional notes that are not in the sheet music
• omitted some notes
• played some notes incorrectly
• made errors in the timing
• made errors in the duration for which notes are to be held
• and every other conceivable variant including whether any or all of these issues occurred in the Left Hand, Right Hand or Both Hands
… and just like a live teacher, Musiah has the ability to prioritize which issues to address and in what order, so the feedback you receive is very natural and life-like. (The ability to prioritize is considered by many to be the most advanced aspect of A.I.)
And Musiah has the ability to deal with such subtleties as phrasing, accents and more.
Musiah gently speaks to you and breaks down complex problems into easy-to-understand, step-by-step instructions to help you understand and master any problem areas.
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“Professionally I am a retired mathematician and computer scientist as well as an emeritus professor in software architecture and design. The lessons I find excellent, and I am learning more, and faster, than I would have thought possible. Most importantly, I am enjoying the lessons. I am impressed with the overall quality of the program. The AI is overall very good and generally understanding of my needs and possibilities.”
Jeroen B, Ph.D — Den Haag, Netherlands
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"I am 66 years old, I just completed Level 7 and am completely satisfied with my progress... I also like the "objectivity" that the program provides. The interactive artificial intelligence is an awesome way to learn how to play!"
William B — Long Prairie, Minnesota, United States
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In A.I. terms, Musiah is a sophisticated expert system. The aim of an expert system is to match the quality and performance of a human expert in a given area — in this case piano lessons.
As an AI piano teacher, Musiah incorporates several new aspects of Artificial Intelligence such as pattern recognition and inference to overcome shortcomings in other computer tuition programs that have so far prevented tuition of complex subjects such as piano lessons.
As a result, Musiah can adapt his behaviour to fit new circumstances. Musiah can reason — that is, he can draw inferences that relate to the given task and, as mentioned earlier, prioritize which issues to address and in what order to address them.
When Musiah assesses your piano playing, he uses unique algorithms to compare the current state (how you have just played the piece of music) with the goal state (how the piece of music should have been played).
Then, depending on your individual situation, Musiah selects which issues to address and in what order and the actions he needs to take to guide and coach you until the current state of your piano playing is transformed into the goal state.
Through these approaches, Musiah delivers seamless, natural piano tuition that is by far the most technologically advanced computer-based piano lessons available in the world today.
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"I wanted to try learning something completely new to me (my wife for half a century has pointed out I have no sense of rhythm or timing). Your use of the internet for competence based teaching with progressions, levelling up etc. — is innovative and for me brilliant. You are on the forefront of a revolution in education — and not just in music"
Dick R — Durham, New Hampshire, United States
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"Thank you, thank you! Your software is incredible! I am a 50 year old Puppeteer from the United States that always dreamed of playing the keyboard, but knew it was probably far too complex. Your game approach looked fun enough to give it a try. Remarkable! I am actually reading music, playing the keyboard and having a blast! Well, done Sir! It is nice having a patient piano teacher willing to help me 24 hours a day. ;-) Thanks again! In your debt always."
Jonathan W — Longwood, Florida, United States
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Derived from the thousands of hours I spent observing students learning the Musiah syllabus with traditional teachers and the solutions I came up with to manage every conceivable challenge that can arise in each lesson, the Musiah app consists of not only very detailed, minutely planned tuition throughout each lesson — there’s also an incredible rabbit-warren of logic in place to help students get back on track when they make a mistake.
Most of this logic, you’ll never see, but it’s there just in case you need it.
There might be 200 or more unique mistakes you are likely to make in a given lesson, and let’s say you only make 1-2 of those mistakes. So 99% of what Musiah can do (if you ever need him to), you’ll never get to see.
For each mistake you do make, the exact road Musiah will guide you along to help you correct and learn from your mistake will vary.
Countless scenarios like this exist for every note of every bar of every piece.
Yet even this is just a tiny, micro-portion of the vast amount of highly tailored tuition, intelligent logic, and thousands of audio recordings, animations, pointer animations and videos in Musiah that all come together seamlessly to teach you how to read sheet music and play piano in a way that no other piano lessons product comes even remotely close to.
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"As a former professional musician myself, one of the things I appreciate the most about Musiah, is its very heavy focus on quality Music Theory, which is so essential and presents in such a way that children are generally only vaguely aware that they are learning theory - it's all just fun for them. Keyboard instruction, skill development and music theory in a fun format - who would have thought that was possible? Clearly, Brendan Hogan; well done!"
Matt C — Bulleen VIC, Australia
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"In just two weeks of learning piano with Musiah, I've been able to buy sheet music and start playing songs that I love. This really is revolutionary. If you have no piano experience it's revolutionary b/c you won't be traumatised by boring repetition or snail-pace learning, rather you'll be catapulted into an imaginative world where learning is easy and challenges are fun. This really is the fastest, funnest (are we allowed to make up new words?) and most relevant way to learn piano in the 21st century :)"
Jacquie G — Drouin VIC, Australia
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In Musiah piano lessons, as you play, notes on the manuscript are instantly highlighted in various colours to indicate whether notes were correct / incorrect / omitted and whether any extra notes were added.
Timing issues and duration issues (whether notes were too long or too short) are also shown.
Then, when you have finished playing, Musiah briefly reviews the feedback with you and directs you to the areas you most need to work on.
By contrast, other piano lessons online only provide very basic feedback that does not include duration at all and is not accurate with regards to timing which can lead to a range of issues.
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“Musiah has been amazing! I'm thrilled with how organized the curriculum is as well as how precise and immediate the feedback is when I make mistakes. I've experienced other software that doesn't correct mistakes and that isn't helpful for learning. I feel like I'm making so much progress so quickly with Musiah and it's very gratifying. This is the best piano lessons software I've experienced so far and I can't wait for my daughter to be able to use it. It is also a great deal of fun to use! Thanks so much for creating this amazing software!”
Lisha M — Brooklyn, New York, USA
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“Before signing up to Musiah, I was a bit concerned about proper feedback from the program. As soon as I did the trial myself, I noticed that Musiah was different than another program I tried before which was not accurate when checking the duration of the notes. Musiah, my very personal piano teacher, was actually next to me leading me and correcting my mistakes as I was taking the lesson or practicing and giving me proper and accurate feedback.”
Anita M — Northmead NSW, Australia
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Put simply, before the Musiah syllabus was embodied as a new AI software invention, students learning the same syllabus through traditional lessons used to take around 6 years to complete the course.
Now, since the invention of Musiah, the world’s first and only AI piano teacher, we’re seeing dramatically different rates of progress.
How long it will take you to complete the course will depend on your practice habits, but as a guide, we’re seeing some students with no prior tuition complete the course in as little as 16 weeks, i.e. around 4 months (sometimes even less) – that’s around 16 times faster than students learning the same syllabus through traditional piano lessons.
Other students who take a more leisurely approach to practice will of course take a little longer, usually in the range of 6 to 18 months to complete the course.
And from there, students are then able to teach themselves more or less any piece they choose (within reason).
To learn more about why learning piano with Musiah is so much faster, please see:
How long does it take to learn piano?
Or
How To Learn Piano 16 Times Faster
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"I think Musiah is a marvelous accomplishment, I'm truly amazed at the speed with which my skills have improved. Brendan, you're sounding more like my college professor every day - and I mean that as a thank you. I had no idea there would be such close support when I signed on. Thanks much...very much."
Milt D — Marvin, North Carolina, United States
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"Musiah is amazing. I watched your video on YouTube about the mistakes in how students are learning and was happily surprised at what good points you brought. Already I feel like I’m light years ahead of any other time I’ve studied. And Musiah is able to keep me moving fast, yet at the same time, adding so many concepts in there, making sure I really get them and really getting the sight reading muscle working in a fun way. So excited about it. Thank you so much for creating it. Can’t wait to show my friends with kids this great program. "
Jaime H — Los Angeles, United States
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Learning piano is widely known to have a profound effect on learning abilities, helping students get better results at school / university. (There are many studies that support this).
Which brings me to a little publicized benefit of Musiah piano lessons… The Musiah syllabus was specifically designed to maximize the academic benefits students will gain through their piano lessons.
It’s really not rocket science. The academic benefit conferred on students by piano / keyboard lessons comes from the development of eye-mind-hand coordination and through systematically training students to think about, cope with and do several things at once.
So when I first wrote the Musiah piano / keyboard syllabus back in 1995 (long before it was embodied in its current form known as Musiah), I developed a way of teaching that intentionally promotes the development of eye-mind-hand coordination right from the very first lesson.
The details of how exactly this is achieved are a bit technical, but examples of coordination skills Musiah students acquire within their first few songs include:
• playing two hands together straight away
• ensemble playing
• moving LH thumb to play two different notes while keeping hand in same position
• dotted rhythms
• pairs of quavers (8th notes)
• playing in thirds (pairs of notes within one hand) and
• other more advanced coordination and syncopation challenges
This is clearly not normal so early in other piano lessons but with Musiah piano lessons it is not only possible, it is in fact normal - and has been for more than two decades.
So now you have yet another reason to try Musiah’s online piano lessons. It's a great form of brain training and will maximise the academic benefits you get from piano / keyboard lessons.
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"As an adult student with no prior piano experience, I find Musiah fun. This is great exercise for my "elderly" brain. I believe that learning to play piano at my age will help keep my brain from stagnating! I like the fact that you get immediate feedback on what you've played. If your notes are wrong, you will know immediately. If your timing is off, you'll be informed promptly! My children took piano lessons when they were young with a piano teacher. I find that Musiah is better than an actual teacher because you can go over your piece, again and again without Musiah getting frustrated with you!"
Esther F — Perrysburg, Ohio, Unites States
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There is another aspect of Musiah piano lessons that is somewhat unusual and stands in stark contrast to other piano lessons sites, namely…
Musiah’s online piano lessons require students to finish each piece to a reasonable standard (shock / horror) before allowing them to advance to the next lesson.
In summary, this is a great strength of Musiah, for a whole host of reasons.
It is what I would call a normal piano tuition / learning experience that a student would receive from a good traditional piano teacher (for example), which teaches the student how to practice properly and fosters the discipline and patience to complete things to a reasonable standard before moving on.
By contrast, the problem with most online piano lessons (other than Musiah) is they permit students to move onto the next lesson or song before the current one is even half-mastered.
And this causes damage on a number of levels.
Learn more here (especially if you have had some tuition from another site)
Put simply, if you want to learn piano properly, the only online piano lessons you should consider are Musiah’s online piano lessons.
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"Musiah is the best interactive software for learning piano I have come across. You have an actual teacher who guides you through the lessons step by step. If you make a mistake he not only points out what and how, but fixes the problems you're having by working through exercises tailored to the issues you are specifically having. A very intelligent program, I love it. I also like the fact that you can't 'cheat' and just jump ahead, it makes sure you learn each item before introducing the next concept. I cannot recommend this highly enough, it blows piano marvel and playground sessions out of the water, it really is like having a piano teacher that interacts with you."
Ashling K — Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire UK
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Musiah teaches piano lessons but students learn on a MIDI keyboard for obvious practical reasons – such as the ability to connect a keyboard to a computer or iPad.
To date, the most effective mainstream piano teaching method has been the traditional piano method, i.e. teaching students to read and play the notes in each hand properly (as opposed to other piano methods that teach you to play by ear or by using solfa-names for the notes).
While the traditional piano method significantly outperforms any of the well-known alternative methods, it still has some limitations. Because of this, the Musiah Piano Method uses a highly efficient combination of teaching techniques to vastly improve the effectiveness of the traditional piano method.
Through continual refinement over many years, this piano method has evolved and matured into the highly efficient and unique take on traditional piano teaching techniques known today as the Musiah Piano Method.
To see for yourself why the Musiah piano method really is the best piano method, why not start your Online Piano Lessons 14 Day Free Trial now
Or
Learn more about the Musiah method
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"I must tell you, Musiah exceeded my expectations and is too perfect for words… in one day of using Musiah not only did I learn more but everything I had tried to understand fell into place… The joy (and relief) of successfully auditioning a piece is incredible… I am so appreciative of the work you have put into developing this software. I know it must’ve been such a lot of work but I know it will change many lives as it has mine already."
Hayley W — South Penrith NSW, Australia
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"Anyone who wants to learn to play the piano should do it this way. Thank you for creating this revolutionary way of learning the piano! I've been spreading the word about Musiah, and the people who see me progress are amazed and also started spreading the word. I hope Musiah will soon become the main way of learning the piano."
Ruud L — Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands
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And another great feature of Musiah piano lessons is... the support you receive is second to none.
As the inventor and creator of Musiah and a piano teacher of more than 30 years’ experience, I am incredibly passionate about ensuring that you receive
• great results from your lessons and
• the best possible experience and outcomes whenever any issues arise
That’s why I personally respond to EVERY single customer email and inquiry.
The simple fact is, I genuinely care about YOU and I want you to get the most from your lessons.
When you send me an email, you will always receive a prompt, courteous, informed reply from me personally
• usually within 1 to 2 hours during our official support hours, and
• always within 24 hours (excluding weekends and public holidays)
And, if needed, I am also happy to call you personally.
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“Brendan... It was great getting a chance to speak with you the other day. Thank you so much for your patience and help. I find your customer service unparalleled in any business or service I have ever encountered.”
Nanci R — Shadow Hills, CA United States
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“Thanks for the encouragement. Also, thanks again for the personal help with the product... that's pretty much unparalleled customer support. I will certainly recommend this program to anyone I know who decides to pick up the piano.”
Aubrey W — Baton Rouge, LA United States
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In closing, I hope you found the above explanations helpful.
And of course, if you (dear reader) would like to commence your own piano lessons journey, I warmly invite you to take our Online Piano Lessons 14 Day Free Trial.
Thanks for reading,
Brendan Hogan L.Mus.A., A.Mus.A.
Piano Teacher & Musiah Inventor
Piano Lessons Or Keyboard Lessons – What's the difference?
Weighted Keys Vs Unweighted Keys
Getting Started – What equipment do I need?
MIDI Keyboard Requirements for Musiah
The 3 Different Kinds Of Keyboard Lessons
Online Piano lessons – Do They Work?
Piano Lessons For Adults
Piano Lessons For Kids
Piano Lessons For Beginners
Advanced Piano Lessons
Free Piano Lessons (on piano technique)
The Best Piano Method
The Best Piano Learning App
Learning To Play Piano As An Adult – Why it's easier than you think!
