It seems that piano sightreading apps are a hot development project right now! When the developer of the new MasterPiano app contacted me at the beginning of summer after learning about our Cracking the Crystal Code practice incentive theme last year, I was eager to check out this new and promising app focused on developing piano sightreading skills.
When I first signed up and logged in, I selected the acoustic piano option and got the following screen:
As you can see, I could still access a lot of the content, but I wouldn’t be able to get feedback on my sightreading unless I had a MIDI connection. I don’t have the setup to run MIDI to my iPad at this point, so I moved my laptop over to my keyboard and set it up with a MIDI cable in order to test out some of the features that required that connection.
I started with the Sightreading Assessment area, which started with Foundation A and, upon successful completion, moved me to a harder piece. Each piece I played was assessed on Accuracy, Rhythm, Pace, and Preparation time, as you can see from this screenshot of Foundation C:
I wanted to see what would happen if I played some wrong notes, so I did that on the next piece that was presented in my assessment:
The wrong notes played were depicted in red, clearly showing me what was inaccurate, and docking my Accuracy score accordingly. Next up, I was curious what would happen if I fumbled my way through, playing the correct notes, but lacking any continuity:
As you can see, lots of green notes, but I struck out due to the poor score on Pace, hence an X on that attempt and the continuation bar shows that I’ll be given an easier piece next in this assessment process.
When I logged back in a few weeks later to continue my exploration, I was greeted by a redesigned interface!
Quite an improvement over the initial look! It has a very clean and intuitive design with quick access to each of the areas: Library, Repertoire, Sightreading, and Technique. Unfortunately, the MIDI connection wasn’t working properly, so even though it recognized my keyboard as being connected it didn’t acknowledge any of my playing, so I couldn’t get anywhere with any of the sections. The Mic audio option was so inconsistent that it rendered any sightreading or repertoire playing attempts useless as well. I sent an email to the developer explaining my issue and heard back from him within minutes! Apparently the problem was my browser; I was using Firefox and it wasn’t reliably passing the notes through, so the developer advised me to use Chrome instead. As soon as I switched over, it worked perfectly!
I clicked to start an Assessment Session and played my way through each of the pieces presented. Immediate feedback gave me a score on my Accuracy, Pace, Note Length, and Note Timing. My Note Length was noticeably lower than the others, so I made a point to be more conscientious in subsequent pieces.
My attentiveness paid off and I was able to Level up 4.8 levels with an overall score on each area in the high 90s or 100. Yay! The assessment automatically has you work through five pieces to finish the session. I love that the selections are actual pieces of music, not just random sightreading exercises. I also appreciate that it’s a specified number of pieces to finish the session and not a never-ending string of music. You can always opt to do multiple sessions, but it gives a clear ending point for those who work well with structure.
I did discover a potential glitch while working through another assessment session a few days later. The displayed piece was mostly staccato, so I played it accordingly, but you can see from the above score that it docked me for note length, presumably because I didn’t hold the quarter notes for the full beat. I can overlook the low score, but this could be disconcerting for someone who is playing the music exactly as written with the indicated articulation and then to receive a low score. This proved true in the repertoire section as well when I played a Czerny Etude that was staccato.
In the Library section (of over 8,500 pieces) you can bookmark pieces and add them either to your Learning category or your Next category. You can also click right in and play the piece. (I didn’t see an easy way to bookmark a piece once you click into it, so that would be a helpful addition in future updates.) A navigation menu at the top lets you browse by pieces, collections, or composers, or type any name or title into the search bar to look for a particular piece. For any piece, in play mode you can toggle the Wait button to either have the cursor wait for you to play the correct notes or to continue moving on with the metronome regardless of the notes you play (or miss).
I did notice that there are a number of pieces that are arranged/simplified from the original (as in the Chopin Waltz in A Minor above), but there is no indication given that it’s an arrangement. I think this is an important omission that I hope that developer will remedy so that a pianist knows exactly what they are learning. Also, the blue ear icon plays a recording of the piece, but this is just a rendering of the MIDI, so it is a mechanical reproduction v. a musical performance. Not such a big deal with a simple sightreading exercise, but quite unpleasant and unhelpful for a piece of major repertoire!
In the Repertoire section, following areas for Currently Learning (the ones you bookmarked that you want to learn currently), Your Book (mastered pieces, though I’m not quite sure yet how to get a piece to show up in this section), and Next (the ones you boomarked to learn next), there is a section for My Uploads. All you need is a MusicXML file that you can drop in this section and automatically populates it with the information for each field. I tried it out with my beginner piano duet of Tortoises from Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns and it was a breeze.
The Technique section indicates that it is being redesigned, but it currently includes four areas: Scales, Chords, Arpeggios, and Drills. The scales curriculum consists of 384 levels organized into Grades 1-8 (correlating to the ABRSM). You have to complete the lower grades in order to access the higher ones. Perhaps that is something the redesign will alter so that a student can access whatever particular technique assignment they need to work on, regardless of where it falls in the graded sequence. I can appreciate the simplicity of working systematically through levels for an early level student, but for a pianist coming in at an already advanced level it would be annoying to have to go through all the lower levels just to get to what you really want to work on.
One other suggestion for the pop-up windows would be to include an option to advance to the next exercise instead of having to X out of the window before being given that option. Within the pop-up window it’s unclear what one should select in order to continue if you don’t want to repeat the exercise.
Popping back over to the Sightreading section, I want to point out that there are four specific skill areas that are in development: Notes, Rhythm, Patterns, Coordination. As you can see, this app is still a work in progress, even as the existing areas are fully functional. I think every time I login there is something new and improved! I love getting in on the early stages of projects like this and being able to provide feedback directly to the developer. MasterPiano is one of the most thoughtful and promising apps I’ve explored with a systematic approach to developing sightreading skills. (I still love the Faber Sightreading Coach for its simplicity and ease of implementation with students, but I’m going to have students completing all the levels available in it soon, so I’m eager to find options that they can pursue next.) The biggest limiting factor with MasterPiano at this point is the need for a MIDI-connected keyboard to make it truly useful. I hope they can get the Mic feature working well with acoustic pianos in the near future so that my students will be able to try it out as well and we can fully implement it in our studio. It’s definitely an app that I’ll be keeping my eye on as it is further developed!
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