Best piano apps for intermediate adults

flowkey, Simply Piano, Skoove, Playground Sessions, Yousician and Tomplay teach from their own arrangements. Piano Marvel grades method-book scores over MIDI. Pianote reviews a video you send. forScore and MuseScore hold the PDF you already own.

The apps

flowkey

Classic is $16.49 a month or $99.99 a year and covers the courses, the classical pieces and the public-domain songs, and Premium at $24.99 or $149.99 adds pop, jazz and film. You watch a pianist’s hands over the score, Wait Mode holds each note until you play it, and you can slow it, loop it, or take one hand at a time. Every song is an arrangement made by flowkey’s pianists.

Simply Piano

It listens through the microphone and marks each note, with courses from beginner to advanced, five-minute workouts, and songs that unlock as you finish courses. The price is set in the app and varies by country and store; the US App Store listed 12 months at $119.99 to $149.99. Each song is a Simply Piano arrangement in up to three levels, and the printable versions are sold separately.

Skoove

$29.99 a month, $19.99 a month for three months, or $149.99 a year, with a free Basic tier of selected lessons. Over 400 lessons and courses from beginner to advanced, songs from Adele to Bach, and it listens through MIDI or the microphone. Premium adds one-on-one support from Skoove’s instructors.

Playground Sessions

$17.99 a month, $119.88 a year or $299 for life. Bootcamp runs Rookie, Intermediate and Advanced, with chords and rhythms in the middle and improvisation and voicings at the top, real-time feedback over MIDI or the microphone, and 2,000-plus songs in more than one difficulty each. The lifetime plan covers copyrighted songs for two years, then $3.33 a month.

Pianote

$25 a month or $229 a year for lessons only, $30 or $279 with the 950-plus song library. Real teachers on video, courses on chords, reading, jazz, blues and classical, and you record yourself and submit it for a teacher’s review in a livestream. The feedback is a person’s, after you send the video.

Yousician

$19.99 a month or $119.99 a year for one instrument, $29.99 or $179.99 for all five. It listens and grades pitch and timing, with lessons on reading, chords, sight-reading and ear training and songs across pop, rock and classical, in levels with points and goals.

Piano Marvel

A free plan with 150-plus songs and 200-plus scored exercises; Premium is $17.99 a month or $129.99 a year for 25,000-plus songs and exercises, 200-plus video lessons, and your own uploaded music. It grades every performance over MIDI, has the SASR sight-reading test, and its library is Hal Leonard, Alfred and FJH method books.

Tomplay

$119.99 a year or from $15.99 a month, with 100,000-plus titles in eight levels from beginner to virtuoso, the score scrolling as backing tracks recorded by professional musicians play, and a tempo you can slow down. Printing is rationed, 4 a month or 48 a year.

forScore

$24.99 once, on iPad, iPhone, Mac and Vision Pro, with an optional Pro subscription at $14.99 a year. It is built around PDF, so every score you buy anywhere lands in one library, with Apple Pencil markings, setlists, and page turns from a pedal or MIDI, and it ships with free collections of Brahms, Schumann, Haydn, Liszt and Satie.

MuseScore

MuseScore Studio is free, open-source notation software on desktop, iPhone, iPad and Android, and it opens and plays MusicXML and MIDI and takes a MIDI keyboard. The separate musescore.com app has 1.5 million free scores from its community, with a Pro subscription from $39.99 the first year for transposing and more.

Chopin Left Hand

A Chopin Left Hand nocturne keeps Chopin’s right hand exactly as written and puts one root-position chord under it, named above the staff (B, F♯⁷, C♯m) and numbered below (I, V⁷, vii°⁷/V). Boxed section letters show the form, and a one-page analysis explains the notable chords and why the piece ends the way it does. I learned Op. 9 No. 2 this way, with his right hand from the first day.

Which nocturne

Op. 15 No. 3, Op. 72 No. 1, and Op. 32 No. 1 are the three to start on. Op. 32 No. 1 is level 4 of 8, B major, 65 bars, an ornamented melody over simple broken chords in a small span, and a bare recitative at the end that turns it to B minor. The reasons are in which Chopin nocturne to learn first. The theory side is in best music theory apps and books for classical pianists, and the books, courses and teachers are in best piano learning resources for intermediate players.