Meaning of Level and session points?

[davidsides]

I agree that this system provides a fairly good introduction to playing piano, but there is a lot of very important material missing. I have had to go to other locations to find detailed information on chords (inversions, substitutitons, etc.). I am a jazz guitar player trying to expand my musical skill by learning keyboard, so, I can look at the keyboard and see where a lot of the missing ideas can be applied. If a student is a true beginner to piano, I think that the missing material could cause a lot of confusion.

I feel that this site is a fantastic introduction to reading standard notation, developing a more sophisticated sense of timing (the difference between playing with both hands on the keyboard and on the guitar is significant), and developing the ability to play and memorize songs. However, there are lots of things missing. It would help if there were excercises that focused on fingering and fingering variations based on hand placement and chord movement; excercises that focused on chord movement, chord inversions, alternate fingerings and chord substitutions - as well as use of partial chords (shell voicings, etc.). If there was more 'keyboard skill' and 'basic playing technique' excercises as well as learning through songs, this would be a site that a novice player could use without any need to reference other sources.

I love what you are doing here and am grateful for this resource.

Thanks for the input. We're in the process of adding more content for our users and will definitely take this all into consideration when creating our new material.

[sw1tch73ch]

I think that Playground Sessions is well on the way to being a Complete Piano Course, regardless how you picture that. It isn't there yet as noted in previous notes in this thread. But one thing to consider even once Playground Sessions is complete is that there is something about one-on-one in-person lessons that some students might need. But that's another discussion entirely.

My understanding, and someone please correct me if I got this wrong, is that the points and level designations are more a social construct for this system, a way for students to work through and show progress regardless where they start and to document actual effort. I believe there is intent for the students to interact in these forums as a subset of social media and the points and levels might be useful there to help us encourage each other to make progress. They don't definitively say that we have acheived a specific level of piano playing skill, but rather how much practice and how much progress we've made.

I could be way off on this, of course.

[davidsides]

You are correct in that the points and badges in our program are designed more for motivation and fun rather than a standard of where you compare amongst other pianists in the world. Our primary objective is to provide a fun way for people to learn how to play the piano as well as their favorite songs.

[cheshiregrrrl]

Achievements are surperfluous if they don't have a clear value (social/songs/goods/$), terms of aquisition, and are exclusive (i.e. you don't get them without demonstrating a specific behavior that not all users display).

It seems leveling up correlates directly to using PS (if you use it, even if you are slopping through it over lots of time, you will level up). Progressing through each Bootcamp lesson captures the exact thing. Levels/Achievements would be more meaningful if they marked particular behaviors that should be reinforced ... (Yay you've earned 100% accuracy on X songs on first try! Yay you tried slowing down a song and it improved your accuracy! Yay you've hit 90%+ accuracy playing both hands on X songs! Yay your accuracy is higher on classical than rock! Yay you practiced 3 days this week! Yay you practice more often this week than last week! Yay you've been working through songs without fingering or note guides!). Use them to challenge students to go above and beyond. Otherwise, I've read evidence (via TAG teach) that shows that the success of learning and progressing is reinforcement enough for humans.

Just brainstorming here! I LOVE Playground Sessions as-is and I appreciate how much expertise and work goes into it in its current form.