|
Rocket Piano is what is known as an
“e-course.” Once you purchase it from their website, you can
download the course instantly. These e-courses are becoming
increasing popular, because they are inexpensive to produce and
distribute, but they are not always of the highest quality.
Rocket Piano, however, was a standout. As with all e-courses,
you will have to do all of your practice sessions in front of
your computer, which some of our testers found a bit
aggravating.
Quantity: There
are a lot of lessons here. They come in the form of three
e-books, the first for beginners, the second for intermediate,
and the third for advanced players, complete with video clips
and play-along tracks. With the
obvious exception of Learn & Master Piano, no other course has
as much content. It takes students from the absolute basics all
the way through fairly advanced techniques.
Quality:
The quality of instruction in Rocket Piano is quite good for
beginners, but despite titling the three books Beginner,
Intermediate, and Advanced, all of the instruction is rather
elementary. If you are focused on just getting started
with piano and learning the basics, this may be fine. However,
several of our music teachers felt that it was really selling
students short.
As is typical of e-courses, the
quality of the video and music production wasn’t great. Much of
it has the “shoe-string budget” feel that unfortunately has
become rather common for instructional courses – especially the
downloadable kind.
Service:
Rocket Piano is sold by a company based in New Zealand. Any service
requests have to be submitted through an online form, and the
response time is a bit poor. They will only answer questions
regarding ordering. We were also not able to find a phone
number.
Online Support:
The company promises free email support for students, but we
found them to be unresponsive.
Negatives:
The same issue came up with our
reviewers that did with all of the other e-courses we tested:
few of them enjoyed practicing in front of their computer every
day. The majority expressed a preference for real DVDs, CDs,
and books. There was also concern about the lack of depth.
Bottom Line:
If practicing with a computer doesn’t bother you, and you are
unable to afford Learn & Master Piano, then Rocket Piano is the best
alternative we’ve found. It is of higher quality than any of
the other downloadable e-courses and a real bargain.
Buyer’s Tip:
The Rocket Piano website always says that the price is
about to go up. We've yet to see it happen.
Learn more on the
Rocket Piano website.
 Back
To
Review Summary
|