During the course of their careers, Don and Delayna Beattie have touched the lives of hundreds of thousands with their enthusiastic love of music and young people. They have appeared in music programs, performances and festivals in all fifty of the United States, Canada, Germany and Austria. Don is currently in his thirtieth year as Director of Piano Pedagogy at the School of Music of Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Delayna has enjoyed a twenty-five year professional career as an independent music teacher.

One of Don's first college students, Chris Salter, is the the founder of Music Wizard Group. He met Don Beattie 30 years ago, and having no previous music lessons, dropped into a group piano class, and stayed for 4 years, ending up with a double degree in Music and Linguistics from SIU, and moving on to get his Master's degree from UCLA. Quite literally, Don's teachings changed Chris Salter's life, and led indirectly to him founding this method and company. His insights into how music could be approached using strategies that are closer to learning a native language, with visual modeling, anticipation, video game feedback and rewards, became the award winning software Piano Wizard.

In 2005, Chris returned to his former mentor to help turn the game into a full piano learning system. Don and Delayna spent years creating the step like interactive piano curriculum (Easy Mode) and then created the video series that coaches parents how to walk the kids through the game and then reading at the grand piano. The results have been astounding and profound, people learning in minutes not months. (Watch the special video above where Don and Delayna share their backgrounds and spiritual beliefs about music and learning, especially about Bach and Beethoven. Very inspiring.)