Summary: Welcome back, Becki Laurent! We first spoke to Becki in her teacher interview on <a href="http://www.pianoparentpodcast.com/becki/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Episode 037</a>.<br> Today Becki and I are discussing our favorite apps for helping kids learn to play piano. Apps help teachers and students isolate a specific skill for improvement in understanding and performance. Once students are confident and fluent with these basic skills, they are more able to play harder, more interesting music. Using apps at home will allow your teacher more time to work on other concepts during the lesson.<br> Here is the list of apps we discuss on the show plus loads of other apps for you to check into.<br> Notation Sightreading<br> <a href="https://www.joytunes.com/apps" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Piano Maestro</a> – a portion of the app use is free through iTunes. The full music library is available for an annual subscription.<br> Students play a wide variety of music along with backing tracks. Piano Maestro helps students process reading skills, feel pulse/steady beat of music, build quicker responses with their hands and fingers and have a lot of fun in the process.<br> Becki wrote an ebook, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Parents-Guide-JoyTunes-Piano-Maestro-ebook/dp/B01KVUU53K/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1496960601&sr=8-2&keywords=becki+laurent" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“The Parent’s Guide to JoyTunes’ Piano Maestro”</a> to help parents and their piano kids use Piano Maestro at home.<br> <br> <a href="http://www.ningenius.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NinGenius</a><a href="http://www.ningenius.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"></a> – student edition $2.99 iTunes<br> NinGenius is a flashcard app that allows students to choose a variety instruments and clefs to drill note recognition. Students identify written notation and match it with a letter of the alphabet, piano key or fingering on their instrument.<br> <br> <a href="https://flashnotederby.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Flashnote Derby</a> – $4.99 iTunes / $2.99 Google Play<br> Flashnote Derby is another flashcard app that allows students to select specific notes to drill. Teachers have the ability to select notes within the app for a certain student and email that deck directly to the parent for home practice. The parent clicks the link in the email on their mobile device and Flashnote Debry will be automatically preset with the notes the teacher selected. Flashnote Derby has the ability of hearing the piano keys directly. This helps students learn to associate a note on the staff with a specific piano key; an essential skill for fluent notation reading.<br> <br> <a href="http://www.noterushapp.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NoteRush</a><a href="http://www.noterushapp.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"></a> – $3.99 iTunes/Google Play<br> NoteRush is Shelly’s pick for a favorite flashcard app. This app also listens to the piano keys students play and features a variety of themes for staff notation. Students are timed as they find notes and are able to level up as their reaction time decreases.<br> Rhythm<br> <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-most-addicting-sheep-game/id550921301?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Most Addicting Sheep Game</a><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-most-addicting-sheep-game/id550921301?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener"></a> – $0.99 iTunes<br> Students learn to feel the beat of the music as well as discern between small and large intervals. Understanding and recognizing intervals (the space from one note to the next note on the staff and on the piano keys) is vital for fluid music reading. Students must be exactly on time with their rhythm or the sheep falls off the grass. They also must keep going and not go back to fix errors,
