With our studio focus on sight-reading last year with our Cracking the Crystal Code practice incentive theme, I’m particularly attuned to resources with an emphasis on piano sight-reading. So when Tomas Iglesias, the developer of the new Piano Tree app, reached out a few months ago I was very eager to take a look!
Here’s an overview of my thoughts as I had a chance to explore the app recently.
This is the first screen that shows up when I log into my account on my iPad. It’s easy to peruse the Library, which includes a structured path, supplementary pieces, sight-reading focus packs, chords and scales training, ear training, etudes, and repertoire organized by musical era and genre. In the Library you can select and play from any book and choose either the Practice mode (that listens while you play and highlights the note only after you’ve played it correctly) or the Play mode (that advances according to the designated tempo marking and then evaluates your accuracy at the end).
In the Adventure section you select a World and move sequentially through a series of pieces. More advanced pieces are locked until you complete the prior ones. I worked through parts of several different Worlds using my acoustic piano and was impressed at how well it picked up what I played, even while using the backing track at 100% volume.
In the Sightreading Test section I opted to start with the Intermediate Level 3C despite warnings that I should complete the Piano Tree paths 4-7 before attempting it. I’m happy to report that I passed the first piece with a perfect score! We won’t discuss the subsequent pieces…lol. Sometimes the sound inexplicably doesn’t work, so there is only a visual indicator of the metronome tempo, which tends to throw me. I found that if I open the Settings menu at the bottom of the page and recalibrate the microphone that tends to remedy the silent metronome issue.
Since we’re doing a multi-key focus with this year’s practice incentive theme, I decided to check out the scale and chord training section in more detail. There are a wide variety of exercises available, so I started off with the one labeled, “All major scales that start with a white key and use the same fingering.” It displayed the scales for right hand in eighth notes and used accidentals and included a measure of rest between each one. Unfortunately, there was a weird fingering error on each of them that showed using finger 4 on each descending pattern right before playing the thumb. I like that there are quite a few options for the scale exercises, but it’s a bit tricky to navigate through all of them to find just the right one. It might be especially overwhelming for a student to figure out.
I really like the Melodic Ear Training section. The app gives a 4-beat count-in and then plays a melodic fragment within the specified parameters for one measure, then you play back what you heard and it notates the notes you play correctly in the following measure. A very practical way of learning to play things by ear on the piano!
Perhaps what the Piano Tree app does best is provide a vast quantity of music for pianists to play through, which is invaluable for becoming an excellent sightreader. Whether you want to complete an adventure path to progress systematically or pick and choose from the numerous collections available, you can use practice mode to encourage accurate notes from the beginning or play mode to up your sightreading game. Or you can just play through the digital sheet music for fun without tracking any specific progress. There are many possibilities, and with the app still actively in development I’m sure there will be much more to come!
Mr. Iglesias has generously offered a discount code to any Music Matters Blog reader. If you want to check out the Piano Tree app for yourself you can sign up with the coupon code MusicMatters20 to save on your subscription.
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