To further expand on what I shared, specifically, it is the scientifically-based elements that make Soft Mozart so much more a superior program.
First off, the program, in the bottom left-hand corner, keeps track of how many notes are played correctly out of the total number of notes. This helps the student and their teacher to see, quantitatively, how accurately the learner is playing the piece. It gives an ability to measure progress from one playthrough to the next and from day to day. That gives a clue to whether the student should continue to focus on playing hands separately, or begin putting the hands together, and how accurately they are able to locate the note positions on the staff and keyboard.
Further, within Gentle Piano, there is a measurable progression from one screen to another, providing visual “helps” along the way, so that the child can more quickly locate the note to play and work on building their motor skills and proprioception along with their sight-reading as one system. With each added screen, about 25% of the visual helps are removed, bringing in challenge, without jumping too far too fast. In the first screen, learners are given the following visual guidance: the notes are colored red/blue for lines/spaces, each note name in solfege is associated with a longer visual representation (similar to a reading primer that has a letter associated with a longer word using that letter), the lines and spaces are given equal pathways, the yellow line creates one linear focal point for the eyes, the duration is represented as blooming flowers that end in a butterfly, and the staff is turned on its side so that movement left/right on the piano is associated with movement left/right on the staff. As we move to the second presentation, the individual note names are taken away, while keeping the rest. With movement into the third presentation, the staff is turned into its traditional horizontal orientation, but the individual note names are added back in. With the fourth presentation, once more, the individual note names are taken away, still leaving the equal pathways and the red/blue for lines/spaces, the flower representation for duration, and the yellow focal line. By the fifth presentation, we now have the traditional black/white notes and thin lines with spaces in between, and the duration represented traditionally with open/closed notes and their appendages. However, the notes still move to our yellow focal line. Finally, on the last screen the notes stay stationary and it is the eyes that have to follow them, and the notes and staff are represented in the traditional manner.
Moreover, knowing when to move from one presentation to another is not an arbitrary guess, but is also encoded into the program with the help of the visual-motor delay, found in the bottom right-hand corner. The visual-motor delay helps to see how long learners are taking between seeing a note and playing it, how long between locating it on the staff and on the piano. If the visual-motor delay is significantly more than the number of notes played correctly, then a child needs more visual help, and should stay or lower the presentation number. If a child’s visual motor delay is about the same as the number of notes played, they may be ready for more challenge, which may mean playing hands together if they were played separately or that they are ready to proceed to the next presentation. If the delay is significantly less than the number of notes played, the child may rely on memory when playing and may likewise be ready to move onto the next presentation or be presented with a different piece that challenges their sight-reading ability more so.
The combination of the changes in presentation, the measurable progress via the accuracy and visual-motor delay, the focus line, the presentation of all the elements of a note at once (its sound, symbol, location on the staff, and duration as a process) give enough visual help without cluttering the musical space and allow for the staff to be presented as a system. This also allows the child to develop musical ability as a system, seeing the unity between the note’s position on the staff and keyboard, the sound of the note, the visual acuity to locate it, the proprioceptive skill of locating it on the keyboard and subsequently, the motor ability to move one’s fingers from note to note with deftness and freedom. It is the combination of all these elements, the classical (in the sense of gong back to sources, like Guido Arezzo- the inventor of the staff), and yet innovative and scientifically research-based approach that truly make Soft Mozart superior among other music programs.
