Forget shooting or sports, Easy Piano is a music tutorial program that comes complete with a mini keyboard you plug into the back of your Nintendo DS (it doesn't work with the newer DSi console). Gimmick? Possibly, but as plastic instruments go this is a good one. The piano is an 8-note full octave keyboard (C to C for those who are interested). The game itself is reminiscent of Rock Band and the rest. So expect to be pressing the keys in time with on-screen prompts. In the same way that Guitar Hero is unlikely to propel you to axe-playing stardom, Easy Piano will not turn you into Elton John. But unlike Guitar Hero you do actually learn some musical theory.
Gaming Nexus writes: "The first promo images for Easy Piano were one of those "oh cool!" moments for me as a gamer. The game not only promised an intuitive piano tutorial that would teach you the basics and even the ability compose your own songs, but it came bundled with a slick little keyboard to make the experience as authentic as possible on the DS. Just seeing that keyboard plugged into a DS made me think of a classy, mature game--this wasn't some candy-colored approximation, it looked like the real thing. After suffering with the hand-cramping fret grip from the Guitar Hero DS games, I was ready for something more real. Here was a music game that got it: gamers were tired of using cheap plastic instruments to mimic musicians, they wanted to learn how to play an actual instrument."
Nothing in life is easy, especially when it comes to learning a musical instrument. In place of weekly lessons in the home of your neighborhood piano teacher, Easy Piano on the Nintendo DS teaches you the basics of sight-reading music and comes bundled with a few games to keep your attention.
Easy Piano becomes the first game to offer a piano key peripheral!