For the budding pianist, Piano Wizard might look like a toy when judged by its cheery, kid-smiling, parent-doting marketing material, but that's just packaging (in numerous guises, no less). It's no toy, it's a computerized music teacher bundled with an M-Audio 49e MIDI keyboard which you color-code with a batch of included stickers for lesson purposes (but also to look more toy-ish... or more accessible, less daunting, anyway) to use in conjunction with a PC or Mac via USB.

It also includes Piano Wizard software from Allegro Multimedia Inc. coughing up simple through advanced piano lessons in the guise of interactive fun for the whole family; settings to accommodate wee tots, graduating on a curve to more erudite lessons that older kids and adults can tackle.

Though there's a less sophisticated version of Piano Wizard in the Music Wizard Group's I-Can-Play-Piano system (not unlike the I-Can-Play-Guitar system, also by Music Wizard Group but branded by Fisher-Price), there's much more bang for your buck, more longevity in the Piano Wizard as it includes the "can-play" basics of rhythm-based icon-popping, but also cranks it up a notch or three (when you're ready) with more sophisticated tasks of learning to read off and play from virtual sheet music, thus teaching music theory, too.

If you're into semantics, please note: The piano part of Piano Wizard is a bit of a misnomer; Keyboard Wizard would be more accurate as a piano is usually (but not strictly) defined by, among other things, its weighted keys offering tactile resistance and nuanced response to pressure applied. Music keyboards have no heft to them -- their keys are often pressure sensitive but always light and springy (unless they're weighted music keyboards, in which case they’re then referred to as digital pianos, not keyboards... follow?). However, fingering and theory is the same no matter what you learn on; actual pianos just have an added dimension. So, Piano Wizard is really giving you piano lessons on a keyboard. There.

What's more, Piano Wizard can integrate just about any MIDI music file (the protocol that enables digital music equipment, including computers, to synch up in real time) and make a lesson out it. This includes digitized cover tunes of popular songs freely available at sites such as cyberMIDI.com, as well as through WizardTunes MIDI music downloads (like iTunes), from Row, Row, Row Your Boat to William Tell Overture, Super Freak to Turn Off the Light. Go nuts.