Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum What apps do you use?

gingko2, good question. It might have been more accurate to say that I like all of these and still consider myself "using" them, even if it's not every day or even every month, except for the ones marked "less used or unused".

In my current practice, I don't spend very long on any one thing, so I might touch on a lot of different things for only a few minutes each.

A lot of these are more for flute practice or ear training than piano practice. I suppose if I restricted myself to just what I use for piano practice, it would be a much shorter list: Music Journal, and very very occasionally Metronome. And Sight Reading Factory, except I've switched to sightreading practice from paper instead of from an app.

Here's an attempt at an answer:

Daily use

practice log - Music Journal. Every day, to track daily practice.

keyboard - Tiny Piano. Almost every day, as I work on aural skills or transcription in scraps of time while waiting places away from home.

transcription - Amazing Slow Downer. Currently using this every day because I'm working on learning jazz aurally. This is for flute.

ear training - Functional Ear Trainer, Theta Music Trainer, Meludia, Sing True. I have a goal to spend some time ear training every day, part with an app and part with analog exercises. I generally rotate through these, choosing one per day, doing it for several days until I feel I've plateaued for a while, then changing to another.

music streaming - Spotify. Every day because I'm working on "listen to jazz regularly". I usually pick an album and play it while I'm driving.

reading - Kindle Reader, iBooks. Often, because I have various music books I'm reading. I'm currently reading one book about ideas for jazz and improvisation, and another book about ideas for improving aural skills.


Potential for daily use
sightreading - Sight Reading Factory, Read Ahead. At one point I was using these almost every day. I'm still doing sightreading practice everyday, but I've got the Harris (actual book) series now, and I think after that I'll probably stay with paper resources. Or I might return to SRF. I don't know how much I'll continue with Read Ahead. In-app purchases are required to unlock higher levels, and it gets really pricey very quickly because you only get a few levels with each in-app purchase.

play along - iRealPro, DrumGenius. Right now I'm focusing almost entirely on transcription for my jazz flute learning, so not using these two apps. But in a few weeks my jazz ensemble will start up for the Spring semester, and I'll want to start "improvise over a chord progression" and "improvise while experimenting with rhythm" exercises. So then I'll start using these regularly again.


Infrequently, but invaluable when needed
metronome - Metronome. Infrequently, just because these days I don't want a metronome for my practice. But when I do want a metronome, I really really want one. In my jazz study (both piano and flute) I'm supposed to be doing exercises with a metronome. But I haven't quite gotten around to it yet .

tuner - Tunable. Similar to the metronome, infrequently, but when I want a tuner, I really really want one. I got a new flute last year which plays much more in tune than my old flute did, so I'm using this less often. But before I got the new flute I was using it every time I practiced, to try to learn how to achieve good intonation. (Ha, I never learned how. I LOVE my new well-intoned flute SO MUCH!).


Occasionally

miscellaneous -

Shruti Box (drone). I'm trying to use this to experiment with what singing or playing different notes sounds like over a fixed note, as a way of exploring harmony. I haven't gotten into a regular practice of doing this yet, though.

Composers (composer of the day). I usually glance at this daily, although I'm not currently going the extra step of listening to the composers music.

Musical U (musical articles). The articles are also available on the website, which is where I tend to go more frequently these days.

Just like the word "hacker" used to refer to the good guys and the bad guys were called "crackers". Who even remembers that distinction now?

Language changes all the time. The word "gay" used to mean "joyful or merry", then it changed to mean "sexually promiscuous", and now it means "homosexual". Another example is "pathetic", which used to mean "arousing (any) strong emotions", then the emotions got narrowed down to pity or compassion, and now it's just contempt. This is a natural process that happens in every language and you can't stop it.

Anyway, sorry for going off topic...

I use Band in a Box a lot for creating backing tracks.

I also use PGMusic's Metronome Pro, which can be set to speed up over time. I practice scales with it, starting well within my comfort zone for sixteenth notes, and when it gets too fast for me I switch to triplets, etc. So after I have warmed up, it keeps pushing me, but I never get to the tempo where I am getting too sloppy.

I also use PGMusic's Music Replay for ear training. It plays a short phrase, you play it on the piano, and it checks your notes and timing and immediately tells you how well you did. At a fast tempo, it gives you a real ear-training workout.

What I would really like to find would be a program similar to Music Replay, but with, say, thousands of jazzy riffs programmed into it, so that in addition to being useful for ear training, it would be a tool for learning jazz vocabulary.

Ed

No internet on my phone, I'm against this, so I just play piano.

Indeed. But I think that people who care about clarity of expression have a duty to resist it. I'm very much in favour of a kind of linguistic Darwinism, that would ensure that only genuinely useful mutations survive in the wild. Linguistic changes that serve only stupid and unworthy objectives, such as Apple's advertising, and have no other benefit, should be resisted until they become extinct.

So in that logic next time when a client asks: "Can you design an App" He should say "Can you design software?" ?

I use forScore and have switched almost all of my scores to that rather than the paper ones. I also have a foot pedal (AirTurn) and am now totally dependent on that as well.

I'm still looking for a good substitute for the Music Journal app
(I use iPhone/iPad, so the Musician's Diary isn't available as far as I can tell).

No one else has ever mentioned this sort of app, but I use a random number generator a lot on my phone to generate random drills if I'm working my way through a particular book. I do some randomly-generated drilling every day. (Sight-reading, scales, whatever I'm working on.)

I wasn't pleased with the "randomness" of many of the apps I tried until I discovered one from random.org.

https://www.random.org/app/

Ooooo, new flute! You have to tell us - what did you get?

Edit to add: P.S. do you know of any decent flute forums? I know it's too much to ask to find one like Piano World, but I haven't found any that feel like doing much reading in (maybe that's a good thing ).

My old flute was an Armstrong, circa 1970. My new flute is a brand new Jupiter. I can look up the model numbers if you’re interested. My understanding is that there’s been a lot of advancement in flute scale design — the subtle adjustments to spacing of the holes — that results in newer flutes playing much better in tune with themselves intrinsically than older flutes. Both are closed hole, C foot.

I don’t know any flute forums that are as active as PianoWorld is for piano. I generally end up at Fluteland when I have a flute-forum-reading itch. I really like Jennifer Cluff’s blog and website, although they’re not forums.

I am using Piano Maestro by Joytunes. Currently for exercises and sight reading practice. I also occasionally use ForScore in place of sheet music.

Too funny, I also have a circa 75 Armstrong flute, from high school days. I had it adjusted several years ago, and then went out and bought an Azumi, based on Jen Cluff's recommendations! I kept the Armstrong, thinking I'd use it for backup when I sent my Azumi in for CLA, but I am loathe to use it, and so my Azumi has not been adjusted in way too long. I have been thinking that I should get a backup flute that I really like, so that I don't keep having this problem! At this point I'm pretty certain I'll never use the Armstrong again. Congratulations on the new flute! I know what you mean about them being like night and day from the old ones

I just started using Music Practice Assistant and love it. It helps me keep more focused on what really needs work. Music Journal, Noteflight online when I'm having problems with a rhythm and Pro Metronome. I have a real metronome and like it best.

Spotify, but more for language, though the music is cool.

Firefox to come to these awesome piano forums.

My ears are so novice that I wonder if ear training programs might give me an in, but I have not committed to that yet.

None.
I downloaded the Roland piano app when I bought my piano in November but haven't connected it to the piano yet. Don't feel the need, at least at this point.
I am fed up with everything being computerised. Too many screens. Playing piano, reading sheet music, touching paper gets me off the computer and grounds me. Gardening also grounds me, brings me back to earth literally!
Apart from the fact I have a digital piano, which is basically just a big computer, I find I am less and less on the computer now and doing more practical things including playing piano, since I got serious about piano again. I keep a spiral bound student diary for notes on daily practice.
I do have an iPad and an Android phone. The only apps I use regularly would be banking apps, Safari, TV Guide, weather and Fires Near Me (I live in a bushfire prone area and we had a shocker in my village in 2013). I don't use Facebook app any more and have got fed up with the way it is trending with its agenda so hardly go on there now. Couple of times a week for specific things maybe.
Internet is a huge time-sucker if you let it.
I felt overwhelmed just reading the list of all available apps and what people here are using.
But good luck with them and I hope you enjoy and find benefit.

I sympathize with this, but it would be a shame to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I hope and believe that it's possible to use computers productively, without getting ensnared in pointless time-wasting activities. For my part I feel no need to get involved with Facegram and Twit-time and all the other social media rubbish that youngsters ( by which I mean the under-50's ) seem to want to fill their time with.

I use two main pieces of software for music: Sibelius for composing, and Auralia for ear training. Both offer features that would be hard to provide in any way other than on a computer. I prefer to use a notebook and pencil for routine note-taking, planning, and diary activities -- at least the user interface is easy to understand.

I sit in front of a computer for most of my working day, so I certainly don't want to increase my exposure. However, if something can be done more productively using a computer, I'm all for it.