Now his company, Full Tilt Design Inc, based in St. John's, is aiming to change the way music is played and taught, at least on the piano. "Until now, we've never been able to have a situation where two musicians make music together live over the Internet] while physically separated by hundreds or thousands of miles," says Mercer, 30 years old, who took three years to perfect the software, known as Melodus. The technology allows students and teachers to talk with each other and hear what they are playing in real time, as if they were in the same room. When a teacher and student are connected, a picture of a keyboard appears on their computer screens.

The keys light up as they are hit, so the two can see which keys are being struck. Teachers say even beginners can learn to play by following any how-to book to identify notes and then, using Melodus, play them on the computer keyboard and instantly see whether the correct note has been played. That is a big advance from most online music lessons, whichconsist of prepackaged instructions designed to eliminate the need for a teacher.

Rather than replace the teacher, Full Tilt's technology tries to replicate the teacher-student relationship in cyberspace. All that is needed is a computer, a sound card, a headset with microphone attachment, a "MIDI-compatible" keyboard that translates music into computer language and Full Tilt's proprietary software. This software can be downloaded free of charge from the company's Web page, OnlineConservatory.com (onlineconservatory.com). Most electric keyboards are already equipped with MIDI - Music Instrument Digital Interface - which allows musicians to plug their instrument into a computer. Students can visit OnlineConservatory and choose from a list of teachers spread throughout North America, Mercer says.

Most of the teachers joined OnlineConservatory after they saw a demonstration at a Minneapolis music convention in April. Others were added through word of mouth. "When I first heard about this, I thought it was ridiculous," says Peter Nunn, a Toronto musician and piano teacher. "I thought: You can't teach music that way." But now, Nunn has been using the software for eight months and has 12 Internet students.

He says the most impressive aspects of the technology are the sound clarity, which he describes as CD-quality, and the absence of gaps in time during the transmission of the music. Some of Nunn's students live in Toronto but find it more convenient to take lessons over the Internet. "It saves the time of travel, and we can do it in the privacy of our homes," Nunn says. "That's an advantage if you haven't had a shower that morning." The technology is also a potential boon for teachers like Steve Therault of San Angelo in western Texas, where students, as well as teachers, are scarce.

Therault says he has had students drive as far as 60 miles for lessons, but now, he has the means to make distance irrelevant. Moreover, he will be able to keep teaching his students on the nearby Goodfellow Air Force Base if they are relocated to another base. For students like Sathya Prasad of San Jose, Calif., the biggest attraction is convenience. Prasad, a computer programmer, says most of the teachers he has contacted in town prefer giving lessons during the day, when he is at work. With Melodus, he is able to take lessons from Therault - whom he has never met - during the evening hours. "The teacher isn't there with you, but otherwise it's just like being there," Prasad says. Not everyone is thrilled. "I've taught for 25 years, and there's so much about the personal one-on-one, the showing of the hand positions, the being able to press on the shoulder, lean in on the keyboard," says Julia Kruger, vice president of the National Guild of Piano Teachers in Austin, Texas. "I haven't tried it, but I reallywonder how big the demand will be." Some teachers using Melodus say they can compensate for not seeing their students.

Therault says he can often tell if a student is using the wrong fingering by the way they play the music. "I'll say something like, 'Were you using your thumb on that note?' " he says. "It's amazing how many times it turns out to be right." Full Tilt can tap a large and growing market for music lessons in the US and Canada, says Derrick Rowe, a high-tech entrepreneur and amateur musician in St. John's whom Mr. Mercer recruited to run Full Tilt's business side as chief executive. Music lessons are a rapidly growing extracurricular activity in the US, notes Kruger. She says the piano teachers' guild has 190,000 members and demand is outpacing the number of available teachers.

She attributes the growth to the booming economy and the rising numbers of time-strapped single parents or dual-career couples looking for activities to occupy their children. More adults are also taking up music, or returning to it, she adds. Underscoring the growth, US sales of music equipment and accessories, such as sheet music andbooks, climbed to $6.8 billion last year from $3.9 billion nine years ago, according to the International Music Products Association, Carlsbad, Calif. "Keyboard lessons are a $2 billion market and we think we can get 3 per cent of that," says Full Tilt's Rowe.

He adds that the Melodus technology has other possible applications, such as allowing people to tap into live piano performances from anywhere in the world. "If you want to hear a really hot jazz player from New Orleans, you could log on to a concert & hellip; and have it streamed into your house live," he says. "We'll be offering virtual clubs, virtual piano bars - there's a whole range of applications." Full Tilt, which has 12 employees and has been operating for about a year, says it has already enrolled about 100 teachers, mostly in the US, to experiment with the software.

Rowe says potential students as far away as South America and China have made inquiries, but the company isn't actively pursuing more teachers until it finishes testing the waters in the fall. Mercer says it is easier to work with a "manageable" number of teachers so the company can get feedback on how the technology is working and what features should be added. Come fall, Full Tilt will start charging teachers about 10 per cent of the fees they collect from students, Rowe says. Most teachers currently charge about $20 for a half-hour lesson on the Internet. He also wants to move Full Tilt's headquarters to the US to be closer to his market. The Melodus software will remain free of charge.

-- Dow Jones Newswires