Piano Melody Free
Have kids play simple melodies on the keyboard to demonstrate rhythms, intervals, and chords. Kids then can use the app to figure out the melody lines of popular songs or to figure out songs on their own.
Continue readingPiano Melody Free is a keyboard app intended to help anyone learn to play the piano by ear. Students select a song (songs with titles through the letter "C" are included; accurate playing can unlock other songs on the extensive list), hit the play button to listen to the selection, and listen to a series of sounds as the corresponding notes light up on the keyboard. Students then play the same series of notes and hit a check-mark button to get feedback. A dialog box pops up with the result, listing the correct notes (such as "C4," "C4," "G4," "G4," "A4," "A4," and "G4" for "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star") and the notes the student played. If the series played is correct, the student can proceed to the next portion of the song to learn further notes and phrases.
Individuals can customize their experience to better suit personal ability and pace; they can change the number of notes they hear in each sample, the playback speed, the size of the keys, and the labels on the notes. They can also change which section of the keyboard is visible using a selection tool near the top of the screen. Although few songs require playing multiple notes at once, the keyboard does so capably.
Learning to play by ear is a challenging task, requiring careful listening to the instruments in a song to pick out the melody and then -- with an instrument like the piano -- filling out the song with all the harmony and chords that transform a series of notes into a piece of music. The biggest challenge with this app is that it’s not clear that the skills learned will transfer to music-making in the real world. Mastering the skills on offer here is certainly possible, but it feels more like playing a memory game (think the Simon toy from the 1970s) than learning to play the piano. For students who read music, the notation in the dialog boxes could be frustrating; although the series of notes is correct, it gets unwieldy to read and might be better illustrated with common musical notation.
If a student's goal is to learn the melody line of pop music hits, this app will suit them nicely. It may not be a good fit, however, for anything more complex.
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Brooklyn, United States
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