Interview with Chris Salter,
CEO of Allegro Multimedia
By Phaedra Boinodiris

Allegro Multimedia's edutainment title Piano Wizard teaches gamers how to play the piano through a video game. WomenGamers.Com had the wonderful opportunity to speak with CEO Chris Salter about the product and the company behind it.

WG: What other methods do foreign cultures use to teach kids music that our society does not employ? Have you found a notable difference between cultures in how kids are taught how to play music?

Chris Salter : My thesis at UCLA for my master’s was that some cultures learn music as if it were a native language, not using the abstract gateway of notation, but nevertheless becoming fluent in extremely complex forms, for example South Africa, Brazil, Indonesia all have vibrant musical cultures that are not restricted to an elite group of musicians, but rather music is considered a birthright, like the ability to speak or read, and are great joyful ways to bind the community. I chose Brazil for a number of reasons, the richness of its musical culture, its African roots, and their carnival tradition that would allow me to see the music making in groups. What was the breakthrough insight for me was when I joined a “Samba school” called Portela, one of the oldest and most famous of the groups that parade every year, consisting of hundreds of participants and thousands of members. I was the “gringo” doing a documentary, and so even though I had no experience playing percussion, they tolerated my efforts to join their “bateria” and learn their one song that they practiced for months before parading. That may sound simple, but it was not just learning, but mastering in sync with these master percussionists. Though it is called a "school", you don’t get in to the band portion unless you are already good in a country where everyone can play a little. I played the tamborim, a tiny drum head that had one of the more complex parts, but we stood in front of the big bass drums called “surdos” which is also the name for “deaf”. It was deafening. To be in front of 50 of these invoked an almost involuntary physical reaction when all of them came in on queue at once. It hit the pain threshold, and I began to bring earplugs to try and save at least one ear, but soon had them in both. This forced me to WATCH the other drummers rather than try and learn it by ear, and only then was I able to pick up the nuances and anticipate the beat instead of always being behind. I then saw that all the drummers used visual cues to watch the leader of their section so they would not miss an entrance. They also just played this song over and over and over, maybe 30 to 40 times a night, until all 100 drummers were TIGHT. This reminded me of the Suzuki philosophy of deep repetition, so deep that the player not only learns the one song (Twinkle twinkle little star is the one for Suzuki) but they absorb holistically and subconsciously the underlying feel and logic of harmony, melody, rhythm, phrasing, dynamics inherent in all music. I learned that song, and saw also that dance was the first way to teach rhythm, and it is of course based on visual modeling, a learning mode that is embedded in our DNA. Later I videotaped about 30 sacred rhythms in Bahia and visually transcribed each drummer’s parts from slow motion video analysis, and learned this sacred repertoire completely from those transcriptions. That was when I realized that if we could find a way to visually anticipate the next note or beat, we could very easily and fluidly play along, and learn even complex pieces without so much pain.

WG: How were you first inspired to utilize the premise of a videogame to teach something like music?

Chris Salter: Parallel with my studies in Brazil, I was exploring MIDI technology in it’s early stages, more as a user than programmer, but I could see the power of it, and how MIDI translated arcane musical terminology and symbols into a simple mathematical grid of pitch and time. It had to or the computer would never be able to interpret this confusing 1000 year old code and language. I also learned to type on a simple video game on a Lisa 2 Apple computer, after having humiliated myself in typing classes. That is where I began to wish someone else would invent a game to play piano and then read music. After a few years of toying with the idea in my head, I realized it was me who had to do this. What I didn’t know at the time was how hard it would be, and that I needed to recruit a small army of investors, programmers, graphic artists and of course lawyers to get it done.

WG: Why do you think that music reading via notes has persisted as long as it has?

Chris Salter: Music notation is somewhat like the written Chinese language. Even though the alphabet as a writing system is more efficient, the ideograms have almost 5000 years of extra meaning embedded in them, cultural depth that an alphabet cannot possibly convey, a historical treasure that as inefficient and cumbersome as it is, has too much value to discard. For example, the characters of mother and child together have a third meaning, “good”. How can those four letters express that level of “good”? They cannot, and something fundamental like the importance of family is lost when you strip away the characters. Repeat that times thousands of characters and combinations. Music notation is like that. Literally coming from drawings of monks hands as the simplest way to show a 5 note scale and conduct Gregorian Chant, music notation became a precious way pre-electronics to pass on and build on each other’s musical genius. But then each new generation and age had new dimensions, from the invention of the organ, then the harpsichord, came a complete retuning in the Renaissance and Baroque, 12 equal half steps instead of a 5 note scale, and then the piano and a complete shift in musical grammar and form in the Classical age, to muddying and then complete disregard of those forms and harmonic “rules” in the Romantic and Impressionist eras. But musical notation was not discarded, it just became more and more complex, and farther and farther away from its initial simplicity, to the point where it is actually more of a barrier to learning music than an aid, much like Chinese characters are a barrier to learning the spoken language. But that is where the fundamental confusion comes in. No one in China learns Chinese by the abstract characters, they learn by speaking, or doing first, and then recognize how the language they are already fluent in is represented. To me, that is one of the fundamental keys to the effectiveness of Piano Wizard, is that the kids start with playing real music, and only then go to the next levels that reveal to them how musical notation represents the music they already know how to play, following the natural sequence of language acquisition. Until today, there wasn’t really an interactive fun way to teach other people’s music without using notation or memorization, either of which is pretty arduous. We do not consider the Piano Wizard system to be a substitute for musical notation, but a bridge, a vehicle. Because like it or not, there is a thousand years of incredible music written in that form, and we need to be backwards compatible with that. Few people comprehend the true genius of Bach, but our game can reveal it to a child in living color. That is very cool, but it is just the beginning of a lifelong musical journey we would like them to take, and enjoy.

WG: How can one purchase the software and the keyboard?

Chris Salter: First of all, there are several distinct versions of our game. Fisher-Price licensed the concept from us and produced a great toy version that plugs straight into your TV, called “I Can Play Piano” with Piano Wizard method. It has Dora, Barbie, Spongebob, Scooby Doo cartridges and game you can buy separately. They did a great job. That product is everywhere toys are sold, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Sears, Target, ToysRus, KB Toys, you name it. Allegro sells the Windows PC or MAC software versions, and our game is available online at www.PianoWizard.com, and in Target Superstores and Apple stores. FAO Schwartz, the classic upscale toy icon, has interactive demos going on during the holidays, but our real push is direct channels like QVC, and our own infomercial that we are testing this fall. This is an infomercial like none I have seen, it is full of heartfelt testimonials by parents, kids, teachers and even seniors. Lives changed, not because of the game, but because of the music. The game merely empowered them to finally be able to express their own musical soul. Trust me, that is magical, especially for people who gave up on it as a possibility long ago. One other benefit we see in the game is that it only has positive feedback. To see my daughter’s’ face when she first realized she can be good at music, and can learn any song she wants, to see all those green lights go off in her head, that is priceless, and we see it every time we demo the game. It happens that fast.

WG: What age range is PianoWizard recommended for? Will you be making different products for different age ranges?

Chris Salter: We have seen children as young as two play the game, but at that age developmental variance is very high, so we recommend 3 and above. Fisher-Price’s version, the I Can Play Piano really serves that youngest market best, because the kids don’t want to stop, and you don’t want to tie up your computer for a four year old very long, so since the toy version just plugs into the TV, it is a great start. As the kids get excited however, and the parents see the value and interest, they generally want something with a more educational path, something with a real curriculum to take them from just fooling around to playing and reading music. That would be Piano Wizard EASY MODE, which can be started as young as three, but may need more parental guidance and setup for the youngest ones. Once the game is on though, the kids can navigate on their own, passing up mom pretty quickly. So for EASY MODE, you look at more like 5 or 6 years old and up, and we mean up. EASY MODE is perfect for adults, teens, seniors, anyone who wants to play and has limited or no experience. Piano Wizard PREMIER is for more the pre-teen and up, because now their musical tastes are differentiating, and they want more than the 100 preset songs included with EASY MODE, they want to be able to import and play the music they love. I would say 7 and 8 years old and up for PREMIER. Because you can import virtually any MIDI file or song, it is truly an open ended learning system for life. You could play Piano Wizard PREMIER for 50 years and not get tired, you just load a new song and you have a new game and challenge. It ROCKS!

WG: What future goals do you have for PianoWizard? What technologies are you waiting for to help you make your next big leap in the product?

Chris Salter: We have Guitar Wizard in development, as well as Composer Wizard and Band Wizard, where the kids can make up their own songs and play together online. The technology is all there, it is just capital and time before we have those out on the market, and capital of course compresses the time if you use it wisely. We have a dozen other products in mind, we have truly cracked the musical code, and have an endless stream of new things to bring out, in many different flavors and markets. It is eminently customizable now that we have the basic system and game engine developed. That is the beauty of the game. We all love music, but we all love different music. We can produce products for every instrument, every musical genre, every software or game platform, including an embedded chip like Fisher-Price did for the toy, in every language. Our market is people who wish they were musicians, and if anyone knows a bigger one, I will be impressed. Our challenge is not creating new things, it is getting the word out that music is now a birthright, not just a gift for the lucky few that learned in spite of the traditional training.

WG: How did you initially fund your business?

Chris Salter: I started this company in August of 2001. On reflection, not a great time to start a software company. The tech bubble had collapsed, billions lost. The scandal economy of Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, the meltdown of Arthur Anderson was not consoling investors either, and then 9/11 hit the next month. What followed was 3 very tough years where we raised a couple million from angel investors and got the product to market at the end of 2004. As they told us, it would take longer and cost more, but we always built it knowing it will one day be a 100 million dollar company or more. The last 18 months have been phenomenal, we-ve raised the last 3 million in that time frame, but as you can see, our ambitions are grand. We truly see this as a global and multigenerational product line. We expect to be bought out by a major in the interactive entertainment industry along the way, but the brand will change lives for generations if we have our way.

WG: In what countries are you selling PW?

Chris Salter: Fisher-Price has it in Canada, the UK and I believe Australia, but we only sell domestically currently. We are ready to take it to Europe and Asia when we find the right partners there. The game is not language centric, it really is close to universal, if you know your colors.

WG: Have you considered utilizing what you have built with PianoWizard to enable kids to make and record their own music?

Chris Salter: Absolutely. That is the thrust of Composer Wizard. My goal is that kids can grab and move the game objects they generate, and begin to play with and construct music like they do with Legos. It is very exciting to bring their creativity to bear. We hope to do for music and children what Crayola has done for art and children, i.e., unleash their natural joy and creativity for life.

WG: What advice do you have for would-be entrepreneurs who are interested in launching their hearts, minds, and souls into a business in the gaming industry?

Chris Salter: Being an entrepreneur is different from being a game designer or inventor. You need to be the parent of your dream, not a child waiting for a Sony or Microsoft to “discover” you. That means, like any parent, willing to do whatever it takes to feed, protect, nurture and grow your dream to the point it can not only fend for itself, but feed, protect and nurture you. Like with a child, it takes years, and you better not start without realizing there are a lot of “diapers” to change. In other words, new skills, areas of discomfort, grunt work cannot be things you are not willing to do. For most people, talking to their family and friends for that first capital, or learning new skills, or even admitting they don’t know everything when they start out is very awkward, and so they quit. That is not “whatever it takes”. For me, I found a wonderful network for entrepreneurs .... [While cooperative networks are not] for everybody, it [can be] a superb resource for entrepreneurs, investors, and service providers .... [C]ooperative networks .... encourage all their members to share their resources, ideas, capital, contacts, and support for each other. It sounds kind of woo-woo, but the truth is, cooperative business is the cutting edge way to grow fast and strong, and once you are in that network, you see the results and the resources for every thing you will eventually need, either there or through someone someone there knows, and you never want to be out of that network. I would estimate 90% of my capital thus far, plus my team, contacts, and knowledge came from my continuing involvement with that organization over the last 5 years. They don’t do it for you, but they have all the tools you need to do it yourself there.