Advise on asynchronous internet piano lessons

[Redknife]

Looking for recommendation for online piano lessons for a beginner adult.

I have a friend, ~45 yo, in another state that wants to learn to play piano. He has a very unpredictable and lengthy work schedule that makes scheduled lessons difficult. He wants to try an internet based asynchronous program. He has the ability to read music, but I don"t know the baseline past there. I believe he has a maintained piano.

 

Recognizing that in-person lessons or synchronous online lessons are most certainly more effective, can anyone recommend an online program? For example, has anyone tried a program they liked?

I have Svengled, with results such as :Musicradar best online piano lessons

 

I am looking for first hand experience or first hand evaluation.

Thanks

[Biggles]

Lessons with a live person via Skype or Zoom etc given the unpredictable nature of your friend could very well be a non starter.

 

Checkout a couple of apps, Flowkey and Skoove which have good reviews.

 

I bought a Yamaha DP a few months ago and it came with three months free access to Flowkey so fir three months I religiously started the Beginner Course and worked my way through the courses just for practice and so that I could gain useful experience of the App that I could pass on. I was pretty well impressed with how the App functions and that progress through the various courses is at the pace of the budding pianist.

 

If your friend wants to learn more play along keyboard skills than piano then maybe a subscription to pianogenius.com will offer him better vfm.

 

Finally do stress to your friend that a significant time commitment is required to make progress in learning.

[Redknife]

Thanks Biggles. I noticed that the Flowkey app assesses what notes the student is playing. I assume that requires an electronic keyboard connected to the device via Bluetooth, usb, etc. rather than audio. Is that correct?

[Biggles]

Flowkey uses the mike on the iPad and does not need a physical connection.

 

My iPad is connected via USB and an Apple Camera Adaptor to my Piano and I usually play wearing headphones and in this case the Flowkey App gets the audio via USB.

 

Hence best if both worlds, what I do not know is the capabilities of other piano learning Apps.

[Morizzle]

I can only speak for myself, but I have a couple of students I fit into my schedule on various dates/times of day. I think if the teacher is a freelancer, it shouldn't be a big problem to schedule a couple of lessons without having a fixed regular date.

 

I say that because for someone on a fairly basic level or re-starting piano definitely should see someone in person (as far as that's possible in Corona times) to pin point basic mistakes and bad habits as soon as possible before they become a bigger problem later on. I can't imagine an app doing that effectively.

[Biggles]

I can't imagine an app doing that effectively.

 

What is effective?

 

The App will indeed help a newbie to get going correctly in that amongst its features is that it displays what fingering to use throughout the Beginner courses and carries this over into chord playing with inversions.

 

You do not play the notes shown on the screen and the App waits until you play the notes correctly, the same with timing.

 

There are also plenty of free video tutorials online that will show correct posture and setup so there should be no problem there.

 

I do agree that face to face tuition or at the very least video lessons will help but what teacher is going to hang around on the off chance a student with time restraints can make an appointment.

 

A teacher is surely going to want cash up front for lessons even if they are at 22:00 or some other anti social hour.

 

I used to teach and students cancelling late or failing to turn up was a pain.

[Redknife]

Yeah, this approach is acknowledged to be a compromise. Thanks for input

[Sophie Leblanc]

It seems to me that when you decide to start learning to play the piano, you are taking a very important step that raises many other questions.

Where to start? What type of tool should I choose? Where to start training? Agree, it will be very demotivating if at some stage you make the wrong choice and it will spoil the beginning of your training. Or, even worse, put an end to it.

 

Therefore, our team has enthusiastically approached the issue of spreading the idea of accessibility of learning to play the piano online and we have developed an application that will help solve many of your questions for free.

I would like to invite you to familiarize yourself with our application -La Touche Musicale.

We managed to develop a virtual piano learning program online, which is suitable for any level: from beginner to advanced user.

 

I would like to mention a few distinctive options that may be of interest to you:

- the opportunity to study for free (we have 250+ songs available and have the ability to independently upload files without any additional fees);

- the training method is developed by a team of pianists who have combined their experience together to achieve the most effective result in distance learning;

- the ability to track your progress and fix mistakes, work through difficult parts of songs several times, and adjust the speed of playing melodies.

 

These are just a few points that might be of interest to you. A more detailed description can be found here.

 

Thank you for your time and we would appreciate your feedback.

[Sophie Leblanc]

As an application for online piano training, I would like to recommend La Touche Musicale. The three main reasons are: it"s fun, it"s easy and it"s free.

Here you can find the detailed review, but I would like to highlight the main advantages of this application.

⢠A lot of free practice: you can practice various songs from the free library. This will help in the process of developing an own style. After becoming more experienced, it"s possible to choose and play more difficult songs.

⢠It's a good way of online training for free by using a virtual keyboard. It is a keyboard like those used in virtual piano schools. The advantage of using the virtual keyboard is that you can learn keys at your speed. And it"s possible to repeat the hard part of the songs as many times as necessary.

⢠It"s possible to play piano anytime you like, you're not limited to practicing on a particular date and time.

 

And the last point is that this application is really easy to use, which is important.

Hope I was able to help.

Good luck!