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Thanks! Yousician was the first I tried and I want to revisit it to do a review. I can’t remember much of it. I didn’t attempt reading music, which is what I’m keen to try, but used their numbering system which is good if you want that. Overall I thought it a good app but at times I felt I got bogged down in a piece I wasn’t enjoying so preferred SP from that perspective.

I’ve tried three SP, Youcisian and Flowkey. If I had to choose one I’d go with SP

Sadly often the way with music apps. Thanks sharing. It would be good to know if similar compromises are made on other apps

I’ve only had experience of Flowkey, Simply Piano and Yousician. Flowkey is good in that they don’t use any additional letters/notes alongside the notes. To help you with positioning they rely on the video of the hands below the staff. Quite a good system but flowkey doesn’t have a strong course outline if you want that. Just songs to learn. Simply piano has that and is quite good at helping you learn to read music. It does come with numbering in places to help you with hand positioning. You can’t turn that off unfortunately but they also have a sheet music view that presents the score as you would sheet music. From memory that view is without numbering so you could have the best of both worlds. Downside is that this view the notes are quite small. You would want a tablet over a phone. Yousician has options to learn with or without music notes. I preferred SP over it though. You could start by checking trough trial versions which has most of the music you want to learn. Hope that helps

The background music does produce a strong beat, but yeah you would think a simple feature to implement

Yes I think it’s a pretty good app for kids to use. And yes you really need the midi cable to get the most from it. Thanks for sharing your experiences with everyone here

Never seen a discount for it, but it’s not something I often check. Not tried Skoove but it’s one I have thought about reviewing. I’d say SP is relatively child friendly. Try them out on a trial. You only get a week but the first module remained unlocked at the end of that week - at least that was the case about a year ago.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. You can just force your way through at times

If they just made the mistakes tolerance adjustable it would be awesome

Agreed. For me it was where they chose to end it that was strange

That’s a good point. It’s really best with midi input

Thanks for subbing in. I’m not familiar with that keyboard but the app works with any that can play sounds aloud. Having said that, to get the best out of the app it’s best to use midi input. Have a look and see if your keyboard has midi outputs on the back. You can then plug from that into your phone or tablet and you are away laughing. If not you can still use it with a speaker output from the keyboard but other room noise may interfere with the note recognition. It’s basically using sound waves generated by your keyboard rather than digital information via the midi so might not be as perfect all the time.

I it’s just iOS and possibly android through the app stores

Glad you took the plunge :). Yes that numbers issue is annoying for some. I know others like it because as the pieces get more complex how you position your hands is important. You could try the sheet music view. I think that may not have numbers. You could also trial flowkey as they just show you a video of the hand movements below the score instead of using numbers. No I think the trial version gives you full assess to all content. Let me know what you decide and how it goes with your learning journey

@@pianocam Thank you for your thorough reply. I will let you know.

I don't get it. Numbers are for fingering. Is it really cheating to know which finger to use? When I try to decypher a sheet music, I'm always glad to find fingering numbers to find good hand placement.

Thanks for the encouragement. I haven’t heard of Alfreds. Will have to take a look. Yes I remember trying to solve a similar problem by attempting to pair my headphones with my tablet and the keyboard with the app via midi. Think it may have worked for SP, can’t remember for flowkey. The experience was not as good

I’ll have to do an update on my channel soon. I’ve been juggling some big life changes of late which makes practice a challenge. But I also remind myself to keep going even when I haven’t played for a while. Thanks :)

I’m thinking that one is next

@@pianocam I’ll look forward to it.

That must be frustrating. I wonder if other apps are any better, or if with these apps midi is really the only viable option?

I know how to play fur Elise kinda when I tried to it said I was doing it completely wrong

I found it helps to have earphones on so the app doesn’t confuse itself with its own music.

Note recognition technology struggles with overtones - C note will contain G and E and D and more, so recognizing sound waves it really tricky. But I thought the tech had improved a lot in this respect. I am finding simply piano very confusing to use because it confuses voice, piano, C and D. What’s the point? Too confusing for a child. MIDI cable remains the only tried and true method.

Hi! I haven’t heard of it but I can see it there in the App Store. Looks interesting. Tell me one good and bad thing about your experience using it? I will do more reviews on this channel and ask my subs which app to do next. I can add that to the list. Thanks for your feedback. Cheers

You’re welcome :)

Hi, sorry for the slow reply. Yes please send your proposal to itscameronblair@gmail.com

Which one did you go with?

@@pianocam i decided to use simply piano since it was the one that worked best with me😊

but tbh i do struggle a bit but i noticed that im slowly improving playing the sheet music!

Ha I relate to mashing the keys to get through bits you don’t enjoy. Or the other trick is to focus on the hand playing the most notes (usually the right hand) and forget about playing both hands together

I totally relate to much of what you have said. You are right in that after a number of months using the app I still don’t have a song I would count as learnt - as in if someone asked me to play them something I don’t have a song from SP I know well enough to play

Ha nice one! If you want an app that feels more like a tuition course, I’d say go with Simply Piano. If you just want to learn some new songs then Flowkey. For the record Simply Piano is the one I currently use and I think it’s pretty good but I’m very focused on improving skills rather than knowing loads of songs.

Thank you. I wanna focus on learning how to play the piano so I guess it’s simply piano then.

That’s the one

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I have same problem jumping from Simply piano to Flowkey, not much fingering at all, just brought a Yamaha piano and got the Flowkey app for 3 month trial, 3 days into it and I am scratching my hand trying to work out which finger to use every time i try the same song again and again. Flowkey needs a function to turn On/Off to give at least some hint of finger number to attract more begginer players. At least for me at the moment no hint of finger numbering, forget about me joining Flowkey for a full year subscription. They do have their PRO, in terms of more variety of sheet music, simply piano was just too simple.

A fair point. I guess flowkey would say you don’t need the numbering because you can just look at the hand positions underneath. But then in the moment this become a bit difficult to do - glancing down all the time.

Why did you decide to switch from simply piano? I’m currently using Simply piano and I’m quite impressed with it. Will look to add a review shortly

@@pianocam I haven't switched yet, because my subscription still has time on it, but in the meantime, I wanted to do some fact-finding. I do like the Simply Piano app, but my dissatisfaction has to do with the various "feature testing" that they do. It's very upsetting to be in the Facebook group and see everyone else posting about the tons of content THEY have that you don't, even though everyone is paying the same subscription price. I find this to be very unfair, and the customer support people acknowledge that it is unfair, but they claim that this is what they need to do in order to make decisions on app content. Even though I like the app, it's not acceptable to be paying for content and not getting it.

Tell me more about this feature testing. Do you know how they select people to test the new features? What would it take for you to become a feature tester for them. Interested because I’m currently writing my review of Simply Piano and I’ll include your experience as part of my review :) Who knows maybe SP will watch the review and change their process

I couldn’t agree more that wait mode is one of the best features for flowkey. And the look and feel of the app is more adult. Thanks for your comment

That you have 35 years of musical experience is a great platform to learn piano. I was like you in this. Yes this is the right app for you if you want to jump straight in and start playing songs. If you want a refresher on reading music and an app that introduces piano skills more gradually I’d go for Simply Piano instead. Or do simply piano for a year and then switch to flowkey. Let me know how you get on

@@pianocam Thanks for the reply and good advice, I think I will start with flowkey and see how it goes.

I haven’t tried Simply Piano but I’m thinking to give it a go and then post a review

@@pianocam I tried it and I found it fun. I can read the treble clef but I have trouble reading the bass clef. Simply piano made it somewhat easier.

I don’t think the incomplete scores is a copyright thing, they are just trying to make some scores a bit easier to learn by making them shorter. If a pro version (on the app) of the song exists the full score is usually there. I don’t like the idea of a premium service. Customers should just pay once. Thanks for your comment :)

thanks ! Yeah, agree that the customer should only have to pay once ! It was just an hypothesis that the shorter song versions ( scores ) are due to copyright problems ... we would have to ask the software company and ask for full versions if possible ?! ; ) Best wishes, Mike

Yeah agree with that. Cheers Mike

Thanks Mike. You should do it for the drums. Go for it! Let me know if you do. I’ll do an update on how my challenge is going soon. As for the text I use the screen record feature on an iPad while using any app that enables free hand writing. I use an apple pen for the writing. I then import that to premier pro and key out the back ground before overlaying onto whatever my video is about. Search for “adding hand written text to video” in TH-cam and you’ll see how to do it.

Hey ! Thanks so much for your reply and details on how you did the wonderful burnt in titles / text comments in the video . Excellent work! Thanks also for encouraging me to do the same challenge and publish it here too... we all have different experiences in ou musical journeys and that diversity makes it unique and worthwhile seeing fragile beginnings! Seing timid and courageous children play simple songs on the piano gave me the motivation to attempt the piano at sixty! Perhaps a misunderstanding that I expressed myself wrong - I'm not wanting to do a 1 year learning drums challenge, but come from drums to a the piano as complete beginner and found the "barrier" quite huge... so your type of video is invaluable to me. Coming from the guitar you have harmony and score advantage.of course : - ) I've chosen a simple piano in order not to be tempted to play around with sounds and effects... but your E-piano has great backging band tracks to play to in rhythm making it fun & dynamic to learn from what one can see! Cool... what model is it ? OK; I'll let you know when I've produced & published my first beginner video ... just a bit apprehensive about it right now with regards to privacy and all.. . ;- 0 Looking forward to seeing your progress video ! God bless !

No worries Mike. And like I said let me know if you do a drumming challenge and how it goes

I’m hearing ya. It’s hard to experience all the features in full in such a short time especially if you are juggling job kids etc

Thanks. I haven’t reviewed other apps yet so will look to add more soon

How did you get on with trying flowkey? I think simply piano is good for teaching you how to read and play notes. Flowkey gives a few more options around how you learn a piece

@@pianocamIt worked out great. I was able to start learning a piece and was able to memorize the first section after only 30 minutes. Their repetition feature allowed me to keep going till I got it right and then play by myself. I need to practice more.

Fab it worked out for you. So you are enjoying it more than Simply piano?

Thanks. I’m glad people like yourself are finding this review. Encourages me to do more

:)

Yes AI could struggle to motivate us like a human can

Hi Corinne, doing alright. I haven’t posted much lately but I’ve still been practicing. How are you?

Thanks. Getting there

Not yet. I’m starting this weekend. Trying a different one every couple of weeks. Then comparing them on the channel

Thanks!

Yeah it will be a slow journey but worth it

C minor too many black keys in that for me 😅. I look forward to seeing how it sounds

Thanks Corinne. It’s great to have support from other players