Relearning the Piano via App

I have Edith to thank for getting me to sit at the piano again.

We got a piano from someone in our neighborhood several years ago, free to a good home. We paid to have it brought to our house by professional movers and that was that. Every once in a while I would sit and play a few very basic tunes, largely from the beginner books I still had from way back when. I took piano lessons from about 3rd to 5th grade, so there wasn't much I could do, but I was hoping it might spur some interest in the kids.

It must have worked a little. When 9-year-old Edith saw repeated ads for a piano-playing app called Simply Piano, she was intrigued. She asked about trying it out, and we looking at it together. She liked it, and I was hooked.

She practices about 15 minutes a day, while I tend to use it for an hour or more. It's been my go-to method to relax during the chaos of the evenings, and I try to fit some in while the kids are at school. The app has a number of courses to teach different notes, chords and techniques. I flew through the first courses and now, a month into it, I'm getting into some more challenging stuff that I maybe knew two or three decades ago but have since forgotten.

The app includes a good amount of sheet music, but I enjoy the songs that have been arranged so that you, as the piano-learner, can play accompaniment. You can hear the singer and additional music in the background, and the app "listens" to you play and tells you if you're hitting the right notes at the right time. It's effective and addicting.

The app allows for five profiles under one subscription, so Paul also could join in, and Atticus has already tried it a time or two. Edith is quickly getting better, having gone from nothing to playing recognizable songs with both her right and left hands in a matter of weeks. I know the app is not the same as a real in-person teacher, and she may still get that some day. But until that day comes, Simply Piano has been a fun way to resurrect my own beginner piano skills and give Edith a solid foundation for learning notes and playing songs.