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here is my one year of learning progress report from using Piano Marvel.

I am at the end of the 3E lessons for technique and method. I missed maybe 4 days the entire year and lost my big streak I had going since I had to move at the beginning of July. I have over 1k minutes on about half the months and that would have been more if I had an 88 key piano. I had to slow down on my lessons and practice time since I am pretty much at the end of being able to learn the new stuff with my toy piano's 37 key limitation. The move cost more than expected and that took up the piano budget. I will be getting a new digital piano either with the next stimulus check or with payments through zzounds in the next month or two. Also my recording set up is now ready for testing, but the wifi strength in my room is weak and I hope this doesn't slow down the youtube upload time too badly.

I get it! As soon I start it and know I'm being graded it's an adrenaline rush, and the better I do, say I'm 30 seconds and playing well then the pressure builds even more and more. I have found that once I know the piece well enough this goes away and the more relaxed I am the better I play. It's such a mind game too. I don't think I'd spend 2+ hours a day just on 4C-13 I think you might find you get more taking break from it for a day or two and doing smaller sessions. I found I was doing the same thing as for me I was just repeating it over and over instead of having full focused smaller sessions. I find more focus (usually less time) gets me more results. I'm still trying to figure our practicing. I feel like learning how to practice takes so long to devlop too.

Btw did you get you 97% + on 4C-13?

I agree. I don’t think that I’d spend 2 hours practising anything. Personally, I feel that I learn as much while away from the piano than I do when I’m sat at it.

When I look at a new exercise, I can tell exactly how many night's sleep it’s going to take me to complete it to a satisfactory level.

I found the same with video games in the past but at the time I never realised why. You hit a really hard 'boss' level and whatever you do, you just can’t beat it. You throw the controller across the room and go to bed vowing never to play the game ever again. The following day, you cave in and decide to give the level one more go.

...... and you do it first go

I got a 99% !!!

Although I have the golden piano, I'm even more driven now to get that 100%.

Believe it or not, what I found that helped is what I should have been doing in the first place. Instead of trying over and over at 42bpm (and repeatedly failing), I dropped the speed down to 38bpm. I played in "practice" mode until I was able to achieve a score of 96% or better. After doing that, I bumped the speed up to 40bpm and practiced at that speed until I got my passing score. I actually managed to get a 100%. I immediately did the assessment at 42bpm and got a 99%. And after only an hour of practice.

Obviously, the first thing I need to do is slow down. I'm just too impatient sometimes. Instead of focusing on speed, I should be focusing on accuracy. Speed will come after I've learned the place the lesson correctly.

Playing slower also allows me to focus more on technique. Keep the wrists relaxed. Keep my back straight and move the arms up and down the keyboard instead of tilting my body like a weeble (who remembers those?). Focusing on playing properly.

I can't wait to get back to it again.

Argh...first time to play since Monday (my school system restarts virtually next week, I’ve been working there), plug in the iPad, NO SOUND. Tried YouTube (my usual test), good volume there, but not on PM. Tried another device, had to go through some crackly sounds (cured by disconnecting & reconnecting, fine for half an hour...then I close PM, but change my mind and bring it back up...NO SOUND...this device, strangely enough, went mute and I couldn’t manipulate the volume keys at all...

Rant over. I really needed this stress relief. Keyboard itself is doing great...sigh...

Does anyone else dislike the ear training parts of the technique program?

They are difficult , but useful. I don't like them, but that doesn't mean they are not useful.

I don't like it either, but have found that it helps later in the other exercises.

I’ve been doing Hanon No1 for months now as a warm up exercise so when I saw it was an exercise on PM I thought 'This is going to be a breeze'.

Now I wish I"d practiced it faster

But nothing's ever easy on PM.

This one could take some time as I'm reluctant to practice at that speed for long periods of time at the moment for fear of injuring myself.

I’ve been using this video for inspiration.

In Pm, it's in 16th notes, and that's way too fast. I can go up to 50 BPM in the way of the video, but I can't get that 56 BPM without hurting myself. Too bad I would like to get through that.

Although it wasn’t a breeze, the fact that I have been doing this exercise for so long has definitely helped me a lot as I've probably done it slowly and accurately hundreds of times. By my calculations, the PM version would be 112bpm according to Lisa on the video so is somewhere between the 'moderate' and 'fast'.
I’ve done it with separate hands but don’t like to do it too often at the moment so will do the both hands version another day. It really is the perfect exercise for increasing finger speed.

I’ve got to a point in PM now where I’m not going to be able to achieve much within the app itself as it will require a lot of practice outside of it.

That’s not a bad thing because now I get the opportunity to explore their music library which up until now I have only briefly touched. So maybe now I'll start playing some music that I like. I'll start with 'Somewhere out There'

PM and trills don't mix.

I’m a bit stuck on the exercise for G Major chords with 4 note V7.

I couldn’t find much info online for 4 note V7 chords and it doesn’t seem to be mentioned at all on the chords site that I use.

It’s basically the left hand that is the problem. The fingering that they show is

V = 1 4 5
V7 = 1 2 4 5

My chord book shows 1 3 5 for V which feels a lot more comfortable but makes the V7 a lot more difficult. I’m wondering if the V chord fingering changes depending on whether you are playing a 3 note or 4 note V7.

Is the fingering in PM actually correct?

I don’t mind learning it whichever it is, but I want to start off on the right foot.

Thanks in advance for any help that somebody can give me.

The fingering in PM is correct, but you can use whatever fingering is correct for you. Fingerings are only suggestions.

Question about PM:

I just downloaded the PianoMarvel app on my iPad, based on how popular PM is on this forum. However something that puzzles me is how the number of ratings for PianoMarvel are a tiny fraction of its popular competitors. For e.g. Simply piano, Yousician, Flowkey etc. have anywhere from 23,000 to 240,000 ratings on the App store. And PianoMarvel is at a tiny 300. Any idea why?

Another way of asking the same question is how come those other popular apps are not used by people in this forum. I must be missing something. Please advise.

It confused me too.

In fact, I think that mine is still the only positive review on the App Store.

It’s very strange.

I think it's because Piano Marvel has been around on PC for about 11 years and has only recently been developed for iPad.

There are some strange reviews on there. A couple, I can disregard as the people probably expected to be able to learn piano in a day however one simply says 'Scam'.

It is very strange that nobody that has used this app (other than me) has given a positive review.

I second what @stevencarr says. I have had plenty of cases where I find my own fingerings that are more comfortable but more often than not publishers and PM have pretty solid fingering suggestions. Also when playing music keep in my mind some fingerings might seem odd but it's to position you for something coming next or because of certain rhythms, etc.

Now that I think of it I never looked at the reviews and had no idea... If i had to guess I would have assumed PM would have tons of 5 star reviews. It's been around so long and is a great app. I love the SASR or just using random pieces for sight reading and being graded is awesome for practicing sight reading.