If Only They Would Practice
Updated: Sep 23, 2022
How many times have we had students with potential, and they don't practice!
There is a solution :-) An app that appears to be a trying to teach piano where in fact it is a fabulous practicing app... Simply Piano.
You may love or hate it but I'm going to say if you hate it you may not have thoroughly tried it. Will it replace a piano teacher? Never. Does it teach good practice habits? You bet! I started with a 3 month subscription and tried it out with a few students as a reward during the last 5 minutes of their piano lesson.
Here's a video of my very rambunctious grandson using it. Warning ... he screams at the end because he realizes he's going to get 3/3 stars for the first time.
As I explored more of the levels and pieces I discovered it gently creates great practice habits (if you make a mistake more than once it sends you into a slow 'tick-tock' mode as one of my students affectionately calls it). There are fun tidbits about Bach and the Minuet (with a video of white-wigged dancers dancing to Bach), and they have scores of the latest Ed Sheeran music with great backing tracks and some piano chord tips. I've never seen anything like it.
My favourite discovery, however, was that all ages LOVE working with it. Rhythm improves, sight reading improves (dramatically) and many of the basics that we struggle with during a lesson improve so we can finally work on the musicality, the nuances and improvisation, in each piece.
This Simply Piano review is unsolicited, I have nothing to do with the company. When you find something that works, you want to share it.
What has been your experience with Simply Piano?