Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Piano teaching apps for the Ipad: good, bad, recommendations

Simply Piano is a primer for people who are learning by themselves. It listens to you play and guides you through the basics of playing and reading music. Might be a good addition to those who are starting with a method book.

Piano Maestro is a practice tool for reading music. It listens to you play and then grades you on accuracy and rhythm. That's how I used it - as book full of throw away sight-reading exercises. It also has several features designed for use by teachers and families.

(FYI - Piano Marvel and Musiah are similar to Piano Maestro.)

I am using both, Simply Piano and Piano Maestro. Both are free to download and start. After a number of levels, Piano Maestro asks for a subscription. Took me at least a month :-)

Simply Piano I am not yet so far.

Same company, but different teaching styles. Simply Piano has this cool feature where, when you have done too many errors in a row, it backs up within the song and you start over the part that was hard for you. Extremely valuable!

Piano Maestro is the older product. It has a massive library of songs. Of some songs it has up to three, four versions, from easy to hard. Each song is then again split into phrases that you learn after the other, a quite efficient way to tackle a piece.

I am now on a one year subscription of Piano Maestro, I use this in addition to having a real teacher. My daughter also sometimes uses Piano Maestro (though not so much since the teacher is doing "Let it go" with her, which is not available on PM :-)

I think JoyTunes is just trying a new, more streamlined approach with Simply Piano, as in the name. Less options etc.

Just try them, they are both free to check out.

I have actually already bought and is using Simply Piano with a midi keyboard. Think it is quite good for me who is a total beginner. One negative thing is that it does not seem to care about tone length. Maybe it does more later on.

Started with Yousician. It looks better but was quite slow progress. Think I learn to read sights better with Simply Piano too. I also use Synthesia which I think is fun.

Started with Yousician and Synthesa on the computer, later on I tried them on the ipad. Both works good but now I only use the ipad with Simply Piano and Synthesia.

Planning to buy a digital piano this week and will try to find a teacher.

Last time I checked, none of the teaching tools on iPad did tone/note length. I think they are going to get there, eventually.

Yes, get a teacher. A lot of things the apps can't teach you.

Absolutely agreed here. Apps are great for many things, but piano teachers they're not!

One of my recent "new" students was self-taught using several of these apps. Major league disaster. I had to undo numerous bad habits, and we're not out of the woods yet!!

And I'll pile on as as well.

Yes, you can just jump right into Piano Maestro (or any other app) and start learning but remember it is a practice tool and you can only really practice skills that you already understand. In other words, you won’t be getting the full benefit out of Piano Maestro, or understand its limitations, if you don’t know what skills you need to know to read music in the first place! But if you have a teacher, they can help you use the app at whole 'nother level.

I recently discovered an interesting app for the iPad - Wolfie. The method is based on normal piano sheet music. What do you think about it?

I have looked at Wolfie about a year ago, but I didn't get it at all.

One thing I think is good for a beginner, but not good for someone who also works with sheet music is that in Piano Maestro, Simply Piano, Yousician etc. the notes are moving into your focus. With sheet music, you have to move your focus on the sheet and you have to learn that.

If you want to work with an app where the notes do not move and you have to move your eyes, try PianoMate. The author is also on pianoworld, so you can give feedback, if you want.

Regarding the other apps: Simply Piano has advanced quite a bit in the last year, they still have the feature I like very much, where after too many errors in a row the app back up a lit and repeats the part with the errors; but now, if you make too many errors still, it has a additional slow-mode, where it goes slower, adds a metronome and waits for the right note to be played, to guide you.

I really like where all those apps are going, but none of them tracks note length yet. I wonder what the limitation is.

I just downloaded a whole bunch of apps in search of recommendations for one of my students who doesn't have a piano yet.

Really Disliked--
-My Kids 1st Little Piano Instruments (Happy Box) -was appalled when it showed "sheet music" but all the notes were a line up. So "C" looked like a D and so on and so forth. UGH. It could have been a really nice app except for that inaccuracy... what is going on here?

Disliked---
-Tiny Piano -- the option to have a song is okay, but then you're allowed to tap anywhere, even though it lights up specific keys. Errr..
-Piano Play Music & Games by Gismart -- same complaint here. Cool as a piano, but once you go to the song mode, you're allowed to hit any note and Jingle Bells plays. I can't stand any app that allows you to hit a key and have a completely different sound coming out of it. What.
-Magic Piano -- Another sound to key correlation problem here, can't remember why.
-Piano+ - Playable with Chord and Sheet -- there are interesting buttons with chords on the side. But the sheet music option is kinda odd. It literally just goes on.... without you.
-Animal Pianist -- would not load on my iphone 5.


Good for self-learners but not as a free-standing piano from what I can see, you have to go through levels to unlock things--
-Yousician
-Simply Piano

Apps that I liked:
-Yokee Piano (Also lights up keys but at least you have to press the right light for it to move on)
-The Piano Free -- Good sound, and just a basic piano, no more bells and whistles
-Dust Buster 2 -- this is another one of those apps that has songs that you play when the .. in this case "dust germ" lands on the right key. The reason why I like this one though is cause there is a METRONOME omg going on in the background.. so it actually encourages correct timing more than some of the other apps.

Apps that were OK--
-Virtuoso- just a basic piano, but you can scroll around up and down. The problem is the keyboard is not displayed so you don't have a clear idea where you actually are on the fullsized keyboard.
-DoodleSounds-- literally a piano that is "doodled". Works though. Only has one octavee.


I downloaded PianoMate. The only thing I don't like is when you play a wrong note, it shows you a little red circle but the little red circle is not the actual note that you are playing.

With SimplyPiano, there is a "songs" view, where you can scroll through the virtual library and chose any song you like, no matter your level.

Also try Piano Maestro (from the same people as SimpyPiano, but can provide a link to a teacher and has a bigger library).

The issue with PianoMate is probably a bug. I don't think it is intended.

Ah, oh, just realized you were looking for an app for students to "play piano" while they don't have a piano yet:

SimplyPiano has a daily training routine to do on iPad/iPhone and displays an octave keyboard for that.

PianoMaestro has a display keyboard.

Nowadays every iPad/iPhone/mac comes with Garage Band for free, which includes a piano.

Hey MelloCello,

I'm sure your son is coming along now. It's been over a year since the original thread was created.

My suggestion for notes would be Tenuto. I find it to be straight forward and easy to customize for students.

For sightreading, find several sight reading books and make that a regular activity at the beginning or end of each practice session (don't forget to set goals).

For motivating his learning of music, (full disclaimer, I've helped to create this app) I would recommend that your teacher look into Oclef.

www.appstore.com/Oclef

The idea is to help students by making them upload videos to a private drive in the cloud that they share with their teacher. Their teacher can comment and also upload videos from the lesson to show examples. Then over time the student can have their final versions published to the community for other students in their studio to learn from and other students learning that music.

Hope it helps and best of luck.

Julian

More app recommendations!

Just downloaded apps to check out ones that would be good for practicing note reading.

Ones I liked
-NoteWorks (A game)
-NoteHunters (you have to play your own instrument and it detects the sound)

Disliked:
- Music Note Sight Reading Trainer: Ironic, since it has good ratings. I do not like how you are forced to identify the note on the clef with only an octave of the piano to use. It means you're playing and hearing only a middle C for example but the note on the staff could be a low C or a high C. The different voicings matter!