Many new piano players struggle with learning the basic skills needed to play songs. While working with a piano instructor will teach them these basics, they will only master them by practicing regularly. Sometimes, though, it can be difficult to learn on their own. If you’re not familiar with music or play piano yourself, you may not be able to help them. Fortunately, there are some great piano playing apps out there that can help your child continue to learn in between their Atlanta piano lessons. Here are a few that you may want to download.
Free Music Flash Cards
This app is really good for those who are completely new to music. It uses virtual flash cards to teach notes and other fundamentals. Note reading is one of the things many new players struggle with. By presenting notes as flash cards, your child can learn without feeling too overwhelmed. This app is completely free.
Music Reading Trainer App
This app is slimier to the Free Music Flash Cards one. It also teaching note reading, but it offers a little more than the flash cards app does. It presents learning notes as a game, which can be fun for kids. Your child can learn notes for any clef, and the app presents a number of different exercises and tests. While many of the basic exercises and lessons are included in the free app, you do have to pay for advanced lessons.
Functional Ear Training
Functional Ear Training is an app that will help your child train their ear. Ear training helps players learn how to correctly listen to what they’re playing. This is vital in recognizing mistakes and learning how to correct them. It also helps your child learn how to identify major/minor modes, chords, intervals, and more. They will be able to learn more from listening to others play piano once they have trained their ear to pick up on these things.
The Functional Ear Training app is useful for young players who know the scales because they will be able to pick out the notes in each chord. It may not necessarily be an app you need early on in your child’s lessons, but it’s one that will certainly help them later on.
Flowkey
Flowkey is an interesting app that can make practice time very fun. Your child first selects one of the popular songs or classic pieces of music from the library. The app then brings up a keyboard and shows how to play the chords. What sets this app apart from similar ones is that your child controls the “flow” of the song. They can slow it down, have it focus on practicing hand independence, and more. It’s a good intermediate app to bring in after your child has learned some of the basics.
Perfect Ear
Perfect Ear is another ear training tool, but it’s not the same as Functional Ear Training. It’s designed to help your child identify intervals. Because it’s more aimed at the fundamental level, it may actually be better to use Perfect Ear first, then move on to the Functional Ear Training app. Perfect Ear shows the sheet music as the song is played and identifies the intervals and other information, so it also helps your child improve their sight reading.
But Apps Can’t Replace Teachers
While using an app will help your child learn some of the basics, they can’t replace working with a teacher. Teachers are able to answer questions and provide different ways of looking at lessons that apps simply can’t. If your child wants to learn the piano, they need a great teacher. Our teachers will come right to your home for every lesson, plus we offer virtual music lessons, too. However, our online music lessons are being taught by local music teachers with live lessons tailored to your child! Contact us today to learn more.
