If you want to get adventurous, here’s just a sample of some exciting Ipad Apps for Piano Students which will enhance your music performance and fun.
Score/PDF Reading
Forscore – this is the best music-viewing app I’ve found: it allows you to store and view sheet music. It pretty much holds as much music as your iPad has capacity. Files need to be in PDF format and are easily loaded via Dropbox or iTunes. You can annotate and save changes, re-order pages, print wirelessly and page turns are easy. The ability to store, read and print sheet music is one of the key reasons I bought an iPad. Previously, I was lugging folders and books of music between school and home. Now I only need to take the iPad! It’s brilliant!! Get a Bluetooth page-turn pedal and you can even perform with your iPad!
iAnnotate – this one isn’t specifically music-based, but is the best app I’ve found for reading and annotating non-musical PDFs (eg. work notes, files, documents, eBooks, etc.). The annotation options are endless and it’s all save-able and exportable. Great bookmarking features make access a breeze. Also works with music files, but the page-turning in ForScore is far superior.
Metronome
Tempo – this is my preferred metronome/beat keeping app. Although there are plenty of free ones available, this one is infinitely customisable. It plays every conceivable irregular meter or unusual subdivision of normal meters (including 2+2+3 for example) and you can save metronome and beat patterns for quick access. One thing I really like is that it allows you to hear the difference between swung triplets verses semiquavers at the click of a button – great for explaining aspects of rhythm theory in practical detail.
Rhythm Recognition
Rhythm Lab – this is my new favourite rhythm tapping practice app. As part of my students’ weekly lessons, I used to write-up rhythms on a whiteboard for them to clap; now I do it all on the iPad with this app. It has heaps of built-in rhythm patterns in all sorts of meters and students can tap right on the screen and get instant feedback. It even has example rhythms from some of the big classical composers built-in! Read more about this in my article here.
Note/Interval/Chord Recognition
Flashnote Derby – I love this app for younger students. It’s a note-naming game conducted like a horse race complete with sounds and images! It was developed by one of the guys on the PianoWorld Forums, which is a great place to keep in touch with other piano teachers. For adults and teens, check out PianoNotesPro. Now also available for Android – Oct 2013.
MusicFlashClass – this is actually an iPhone app, but it’s the best available for quizzing notes on the stave. It’s highly customisable and you can put it in various modes including one where students just have to specify the letter name of the note (“A”) or play it on the on-screen piano – great for making the connection between rote note learning and actual piano playing. Here’s a great review by Jennifer Foxx.
Piano Notes Pro – if you want students to be able to play the note “G” on the piano as well as just recognise it on the stave (as in Flashnote Derby), this is a good app. You choose the clef, range, accidents, number of notes to quiz, etc. and the student has to play the notes on the piano on the screen. Highly customisable and easy to use. Can also use with MIDI input so that you can play the notes that come up on the screen. You can also test students’ chord/inversion reading with this app.
Suggestions from:timtopham.com
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