Piano Marvel claims to be the fastest way to learn piano – four times faster than traditional methods.
Used by individuals, piano teachers, schools, and universities, it is advertised as a complete piano learning system for all levels and ages.
It connects your piano with your computer or iPad to deliver bite-sized lessons while tracking your accuracy and progress.
With many different elements such as lessons in technique and ear training, sight reading tests, and a large song library, Piano Marvel certainly is comprehensive, and as a bonus, it comes with a drums course as well.
This course has a lot going for it, but let’s find out if it’s the method for you.
Getting Started
Piano Marvel is a subscription-based program. For a premium account, you can choose a monthly fee of $15.99 or pay by the year at $110.99.
If you want to try it out before committing, you can opt for a free account, which gives you access to the level one lessons and songs.
The individual method books used in the lessons are also available for purchase in the Piano Marvel store at $12 a piece, but the course itself offers much better value.
This course works with Mac or PC computers using the web app, and iPads. The app walks you through the set-up and has many videos that show you around the course and familiarize you with its features.
You can use Piano Marvel with an acoustic piano or a digital piano or keyboard.
I strongly recommend a weighted 88-key piano for this course, as a shorter piano will limit the pieces you can play, and an unweighted keyboard doesn’t help you develop proper technique.
With an acoustic piano, you learn in what they call “book mode”. This means that you have access to the lessons and songs, note hints, video lessons, and manual progress tracking, but not the assessment features.
With a digital piano or keyboard, you get the full benefit of the course. Called “assessment mode”, connecting your piano to your device allows the program to measure your accuracy during practice and tests.
To connect your digital piano, you will need either a USB cable or a MIDI-to-USB cable, depending on the piano. You may need to download a driver from the keyboard manufacturer’s website.
Features
Let’s take a look at some of Piano Marvel’s main components.
Method and Technique Lessons
Within the app, you’ll notice two tabs labeled “Method” and “Technique”. This is where the learning happens.
Each of these contains six levels divided into 30 sections, which are further broken up into 20 lessons per section.
There is usually a video tutorial above each lesson that that summarizes the skills you’ll be learning, and a printable book that explains lessons in-depth and contains all the sheet music used in the lessons.
Method and Technique are designed to go hand in hand, with skills that are taught in the Method section reinforced in the Technique section.
These are intended to encourage and motivate students to complete lessons without mistakes.
There are a few different modes within the lessons that help students practice effectively.
Prepare mode, or “wait for me” mode, assesses the accuracy of your notes at your own pace, and Assess mode measures how accurately you play both the notes and rhythms. Correct notes turn green, and incorrect notes are shown in red on the staff.
Practice mode breaks the piece into short sections so that you can practice individual sections.
This mode is particularly valuable since when learning something new it’s easy to fall into the habit of always starting at the beginning, resulting in a stellar first half and a weaker finish.
The “Play Controls” tab brings up many adjustable settings, including volume, accompaniment, tempo, and a metronome.
Song Library
The music library has thousands of songs that you can download for free. They are from many genres including jazz, holiday, contemporary, and rock n roll, but most of the pieces fall in the classical category.
Some of the pieces come with video lessons or a link to the song being performed.
To discover music, you can sort by level, including beginner (levels 1-3), intermediate (levels 4-6), advanced (levels 7-10), and professional (levels 11-18).
The library includes pieces that come from the curriculum of print piano methods like Premier, Alfred, and the Hal Leonard Piano Solos series.
Besides pieces, the song library provides bootcamps with reading exercises, and even sample sight reading and harmony exams from piano method BachScholar.
In addition to the practice modes I went into above, the songs come with a “slicing” feature that I see as a really valuable practice tool. The different kinds are:
- Whole slicing – Play the whole piece through one hand at a time.
- Chopped slicing – Divides the pieces into short segments that you play hands-together.
- Minced slicing – Play the short segments hands-separately.
Once a section is complete accurately, you are awarded a star. According to Piano Marvel, once you’ve earned all the slicing stars for a piece, it should be performance-ready.
Progress Tracking
Piano Marvel keeps track of how much you practice, and you can set practice goals for each month. It also shows you how many days in a row you have practiced. If you’re like me and hate to break a streak, this could be great motivation.
It also tracks your SASR score over time, and how well you do on each of the lessons.
If you have a piano teacher, your teacher can access this information as well to see if you are hitting your practice goals and what skills you are struggling with.
Standard Assessment of Sight Reading (SASR)
This is a feature unique to Piano Marvel. The SASR is a sight reading test available at beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels that measures how well you can play a piece right after seeing it.
Here’s how it works: You’re given 20 seconds to look over the song, and then you must play it as accurately as you can.
There are multiple pieces within the test, but if you score lower than 80% accuracy three times, the test is over.
There are thousands of songs in the SASR song vault with new ones added daily, so the test is always new.
Support for Teachers
While Piano Marvel can be used on its own, it strongly encourages you to have a teacher as well, to the point where any review would be incomplete without a mention of their teacher-centric features.
There are videos on the app that show piano teachers how to use the software as a teaching aid, and Piano Marvel also holds teacher conferences and webinars.
The Piano Marvel website even has a “Find a Teacher” page to help you find an online teacher. If you know a teacher with whom you want to use the software, Piano Marvel will train that teacher to use their program.
One really cool feature for teachers is the ability to create their own lessons. They can load their own arrangements from Finale to Piano Marvel for students to practice within the program.
Teachers can also organize songs, lessons, and videos (both internal and imported) into folders so that students know exactly what to practice.
I’d like to stress here that while Piano Marvel does seem to be a great tool for teachers, don’t lose hope if you want to learn on your own. This course is no less suited to solo learners than other online piano methods meant to be used alone.
Challenges and Competitions
Piano Marvel holds contests like their annual YouTube Competition and Christmas Challenge, which both have prizes of cash or an iPad up for grabs.
All you need to do is record and upload a video of yourself playing to YouTube.
This is a point in favor of this course as a self-taught program, since a virtual competition provides motivation as well as a simulated performance experience, both of which are often missing from self-directed courses.
The Curriculum
Here’s a closer look at what you’ll be learning in each of the lessons.
Method
This is where you do most of your learning, and where you will spend a large portion of your practice time.
It’s worth noting that while there are six levels here, the pieces in the song library go up to level 18. However, the foundations taught here can be applied to learning more difficult pieces – it’ll just take a whole lot of practice.
Level One – Covers intro to the keyboard, finger numbers, and posture. The exercises introduce basic rhythm, a few notes, 4/4 time, 6/8 time, and musical terms and symbols like staccato/legato, dynamics, and repeat signs.
Level Two – In this level, you’ll learn new hand positions, steps/skips, pickup notes, accidentals, syncopation, inner ledger lines, and 2/2 and ¾ time and their conducting patterns.
Level Three – This is the intro to scales, teaching you the C, G, and F major scales, and the g and f harmonic minor scales.
It also teaches whole/half steps, intervals, chords I, IV, and V7, major/minor, the sostenuto (sustain) pedal, relative majors and minors, key signatures, 12 bar blues, key changes, and crescendo/decrescendo.
Level Four – Covers triads and inversions, musical phrasing, pedaling technique, more musical terms, transposition, and the circle of fifths. New scales and triads taught are D, A, Bb, Eb, and Ab major.
Level Five – This level is all about reading more advanced sheet music, including things like reading two hands on the one staff, finger substitution, crossing hands, and reading two of the same stave.
It also covers Alberti bass, arpeggios, dotted eighth notes, and swing. New keys are a, e, d, and g minor, and F# major.
Level Six – This is your intro to the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras. It also covers the minimalist composition technique, ornaments, and the f minor scale and triads.
Technique
The technique lessons reinforce the lessons in the method section and have flashcards and ear training exercises.
The books and lessons generally follow along with the method section and give you more practice with the concepts that you learn there.
However, there are a few things that come out of left field, like the choir warmups in level 6, which I suppose are to help those who want to play the piano for a choir.
The flashcard exercises are located at the end of the trophy and are best used as review. Notes, intervals, and chords pop up on screen and you must play them within the given time limit.
The ear training exercises are designed to help you listen to a note, interval, or chord and know what it is. They will have you singing in solfege, naming intervals and chords, and playing melodies after listening to them.
Pros and Cons
Here are some of my favorite features of Piano Marvel, as well as a few areas that could be improved upon.
Encourages well-rounded practice – The difference practice modes and sections encourage helpful practice techniques like clapping, counting out loud, practicing slowly, practicing in sections, and scales. These aren’t the most fun methods, but they are the most effective.
Teaches musical terms and signs – Unlike most online piano methods, Piano Marvel teaches the details of sheet music, including terms and symbols. Not only does this allow students to read music from other sources, it encourages musical playing by making student aware of things like variation in dynamics, phrasing, and style.
Strong on theory – The method and technique books have students naming notes and chords, doing rhythm clapping exercises, and identifying key signatures, which provides a strong foundation in theory.
Ear training – This is something that is usually done with teachers in traditional methods, so it’s great that solo learners can fulfil this important requirement on their own.
Contains original, advanced sheet music – The upper-level pieces in the song library really are at an advanced level, and you are playing the music as it was written by the composer, rather than an arrangement. This is unusual for an online piano method.
Printable music – All the sheet music in the lessons and the library can be saved as a pdf and printed. This is great for when you want to practice without the program.
Assumes you have a teacher – There are features that were obviously designed with teachers in mind, for example, tests and certificates that would be difficult to administer/award to yourself.
Lesson music is fairly uninteresting – This course uses simple, familiar children’s tunes like “Mary Had a Little Lamb” in the lessons, which some students (especially older ones) may not find too exciting.
Little genre variation – Most of the pieces in the song library are in the classical genre, and after moving on from simple tunes, the lessons focus on this kind of music as well.
Only teaches harmonic minor – Students will come out of this course unaware that natural minor and melodic minor exist, since it only deals with harmonic minor.
Barely touches hand position and posture – There is one page in lesson one with one simple drawing of proper piano posture and hand position. This is unlikely to be enough to cultivate proper technique.
Who is Piano Marvel Best For?
Piano Marvel gives you a really solid foundation in theory and reading music, which is important for those who are serious about the piano.
However, if you are interested in quickly being able to sit down at the piano and have something fun to play, which many older beginners are, this may not be the course for you.
Since it was designed to be used alongside piano lessons, it mimics traditional piano methods more closely than other online piano courses.
This means that it doesn’t include as much improvisation, chording, and popular music as is typically found in courses aimed at older beginners.
So, you have to want to learn how to play classical music to really enjoy this course.
The target demographic of Piano Marvel seems to be children guided by a teacher. However, overlooking the kids’ music used to teach lessons, it is also suitable for teenagers and adults.
Final Thoughts
In general, I was impressed with Piano Marvel as a tool for learning how to play classical piano music and read sheet music.
It is very comprehensive and hits a lot of the areas that tend to be lacking in online piano methods, such as theory, musical terms and symbols, and ear training.
While this program is meant to be used in conjunction with in-person lessons with a piano teacher, self-motivated teenaged or adult beginners could easily make a lot of progress on their own.
Even though they recommend a teacher, Piano Marvel actually has mitigated a lot of the usual downsides to online methods, such as lack of motivation and no training on musicality.
As long as you watch some additional videos on proper piano posture and hand position, this could be a great place to start your piano journey.
About the Author – Giselle Sproule
Giselle has been playing the piano for nearly her whole life. She has her grade 10 piano certificate from the Royal Conservatory of Music and a bachelor’s degree in English.
Giselle has worked as a piano teacher, but she is currently a freelance writer and editor. You can usually find her at home in Calgary or on a travel adventure with her mandolin.
Hi Giselle,
Firstly, thanks so much for the comprehensive reviews. I’m an adult beginner who wants to learn primarily to be able to play Musical Theatre songs / scores. In your opinion would Piano Marvel be the best bet for that from the courses you’ve reviewed? I really like the videos that Lisa does for Pianote, but I’m not sure if that’s geared a bit more to improv / jazz, and I get the impression that Playground Sessions is just more for pop / fun. I’d really love to know your thoughts.
P.S. Just waiting on a Roland FP10 to be delivered so I’m excited to get started!
Hi, since Piano Marvel doesn’t have any means of leaving feedback, I decided to leave it here. My goal is to learn the piano on my own, now that I’m pretty much home all day. I tried Piano Marvel first because it has a free trial period but it’s very disappointing. Why?
1) The dashboard doesn’t tell you where to start. I’m assuming you’re supposed to start with the “Method” levels but there is no indication whether this is correct.
2) Each lesson comes with a PDF where the contents of the lesson are presented. There are no videos.
3) Well… no videos for students, anyway. There are videos for teachers to learn how to integrate Piano Marvel into their lessons. And that explains a whole lot because Piano Marvel is intended to be an add-on for a traditional piano class taught by a piano teacher in person. That becomes clear when looking at the lesson PDFs where there is literally NO EXPLANATION about anything, only some key words here and there. Also, each exercise has bars for the student and bars for the teacher to accompany the student with.
4) The PDFs were made in 2011. So it’s obvious they created their content once, built an affiliate network with piano teachers and profit off of that. That’s fine if that’s their business model but it’s 100% not what I need if I want to learn on my own.
I’ll try Playground Sessions next, even though I’m really not keen on having to enter a recurring subscription just to try it out.
Hi, sorry to hear you didn’t like the Piano Marvel method. Let me try to address some of the concerns you shared.
1) There are several introductory videos available on the main dashboard that show you around and talk about how to use Piano Marvel and all the tools/resources it offers.
2) While you can use Piano Marvel as a complementary resource to your in-person piano lessons, it also works as a standalone learning platform. Most of the videos in Piano Marvel are for students, not for teachers. It looks like you’re referring to videos in the “Videos” section, but those are only to help you get started with the platform (guides and tours how to use Piano Marvel for both students and teachers). The majority of videos that explain and teach music theory, concepts, and songs are inside the lessons themselves. When you go to the Method section, and choose a lesson, in many cases you’ll find a video icon right below the title of the lesson.
3) The PDFs may have been made in 2011, but Piano Marvel is definitely not something that was created once and never updated. Many of the video lessons were recorded (re-recorded) in 2018. Just about a year ago they redesigned the whole interface. There are new tools, video lessons, exercises that they introduce regularly (e.g. the recently introduced “Scale Ninja” for practicing scales).
Piano Marvel also provide support to their users, so if you have any more questions or concerns about the platform, feel free to reach out to them. I’m sure they will appreciate your feedback.
In any case, I hope you find a platform you’re happy with.
This is amazing! Welter is impeccable
The issue with Piano Marvel is that the metronome is not always with what is being played. I have found some incorrect notes being played or some incorrect notes written and played differently on the recording. For me- I wish I could have had something like this when I went to college. This program has greatly improved my ear training. It is a ton better than the professor that had. I know the objective is the piano – that is what I am working on. I just happened to have heard notes better ( the inner notes of a chord) better with this program. I was a music teacher and I am retired. Currently , ( besides learning piano I would like to find a theory book. I have a bucket list of things I want to do before I die. One of them is writing a composition. Unfortunately, where I taught music I did not need more than beginner theory- and if you do not practice it you loose and I have. I am looking for something that is self paced and does not leave things out.
I could not agree with you more, piano Marvel is constantly upgrading their platforms and content and I am speaking as someone that has seen a child of eight years old in just 3 years become a grade 6 abrsm solely on Piano Marvel.
Hi Mark,
So I’m trying to decide if Piano Marvel is right for me and my girls. Are you saying that the lessons in Piano Marvel take you through to grade 6 abrsm? Could you give me some more detail please.
Many thanks Paul
I’ve tried a few piano learning apps, and in my experience the best for learning on your own is Musiah. It was originally designed for children, so some adults are put off by the way the lessons are presented, but you can switch most of that off. Musiah forces a stricter curriculum on the student, in that there are set pieces and you have to play each piece to a decent level before progressing to the next piece. But this rigid format ensures the student builds up skills incrementally without skipping tricky parts. Where I think it excels over Piano Marvel and Playground Sessions is the software is much more accurate in assessing how well you have played a piece. Crucially it measures note duration, while the others don’t. So you can play a song quite poorly on Piano Marvel and still score 100. However Piano Marvel will ultimately take you further. Musiah doesn’t have a song library, so once you’ve completed the course (which takes a year or two depending on your free time) then that’s it. You’ve finished it. Piano Marvel has a huge library, that you can also upload your songs to, but you really need a teacher to guide you. I’d recommend Musiah first, then Piano Marvel with a teacher. At least that’s what I’ve done.
Hi Bill,
Thanks for your input! We’ll definitely look closer into Musiah. To be honest, I haven’t heard of this platform before but it’s still worth checking out.
Lucus
Similar to Bill’s response, I have been using Musiah Since September 2019. I am about to complete level 7 of 13 so it looks like I will be extending my annual subscription for a year if I want to complete the course. (199/year saving $99 over monthly price)
My biggest issue with Musiah is its claim to being AI. The term AI may be ambiguous, but it should at least have an aspect of learning something about the student. The “instructor” will identify all the errors in notes, timing, and duration, but never how to correct. Also, the “instructor” does not consider the tempo and will never suggest practicing slower. Even after several attempts where I hear, ‘your notes are fine, but your timing needs more work, then I slip up and hear, ‘you still have issues with your notes’, that is not AI in my understanding.
Basically, my issue is with the lesson and teaching part. The practice part is where I have been teaching myself and find it to be the best part of the App. I follow the syllabus, which I will leave to the professional to review, but ignore the AI feedback of the instructor. Therefore, I have been looking for an App with similar features to the Musiah practice area for when I complete the course. So far, I am leaning toward Piano Marvel.
Unlike Bill, this is the only App that I tried after briefly doing some research. I did not choose Piano Marvel after I read a review with a response, claimed to be from the PM creators, that said they purposely do not consider note duration important because that is what one of the piano’s peddles are for and real piano players do not hold their whole notes any duration. They use a pedal for holding notes. A reviewer did not like that Musiah made you hold a whole note for 4 counts when no real pianist would do this, based on the Piano Marvel creators.
Questions about Piano Marvel:
I am using an iPad with Bluetooth input from a Yamaha YDP-163 keyboard, and wired headphones plugged into the iPad, so I do not annoy everyone with constant repetition.
1. Does PM ignore note duration? Looking at all the videos and such, it sure looks like they are holding their whole notes. I cannot find anything on their site that indicates what several reviewers have said, including Bill above. I saw nothing in your review to indicate this.
2. Does the discount code for Dreamers apply to the annual subscription price? And does it apply for Renewals or just first time? If PM does what I want, I may be using it for a while.
3. I will be using an iPad and everything I see has it in the horizontal position where I only see a couple of lines of music. Is there a portrait position where you might see the whole sheet of music?
4. Does the PM app produce the sound or does the keyboard? Musiah has different sounds for each of the lessons with the option to switch to a basic piano sound and the keyboard sound is set to 0 or you can use just the keyboard for sound.
5. I am 63, more mechanical then musical, have a PTSD (Piano Teacher Stress Disorder) from grade school experience, and would like to learn piano to keep my brain working. Would you suggest Piano Marvel for me based on my information?
6. Does PM only allow one account per subscription or can Family share a subscription?
Thanks David.
Yes I agree about some of the claims Musiah makes about using AI. It really isn’t AI, at least not in the sense that it adapts to the student, but that’s not important. As you say it is not the key feature. Another claim I dislike is that it takes you to grade 6, and does so up to 16 times faster than traditional lessons. It doesn’t take you anywhere near grade 6 (ABRSM) in my view. On the penultimate level you play Minuet in G Major by Bach/Pezold which has been previously used to test grade 3 students so, based on that, I’d say Musiah takes you to grade 3. Maybe it touches on grade 4. Also it doesn’t teach you to use the pedals, which I think would be a requirement for pieces aabove grade 3. A grade 6 pianist would definitely know how to use the pedals.
I can undestand the point made by Piano Marvel that professional pianists would usually use the sustain pedal and not bother with note durations. But we’re talking about beginners here, and I think learning to hold the notes for the correct duration is important for beginners as it helps fingering technique. I don’t think students learn to use the pedals until after grade 3 anyway, so I think correct note duration is relevant here.
Regarding your questions, I don’t have the answers, but you can usually try Piano Marvel for free for a few weeks, so you should be able to find out for yourself.
Bill, I read your comment about Musiah.
Myself and my daughter were previously using Piano Marvel.
My daughter liked the idea of the story being used in Musiah, but after being booed and having vegetables thrown at her within the software, simply because she received a lowish score at the end of one of the levels, she began crying and was very upset.
Whilst the idea of being judged on note length and having more immediate feedback is tempting, being booed is completely inappropriate as a teaching method, especially for young sensitive children.
I would most definitely avoid this software unless you happen to enjoy demoralising and lowering the self esteem of your children.
Piano Marvel is definitely the much better option, and I have cancelled my subscription for Musiah.
Paul, I understand your point. I found it a bit insensitive when you fail a performance challenge. Also at times the audio can come across as somewhat mocking. I put it down in part to the guy who invented the system being an Australian, Culturally Aussies can be thick skinned and unafraid to dish out criticism. However neither of my kids found this offputting. Certainly the euphoria they got from completing a performance challenge beats anything on Piano Marvel. I guess it depends on the child.
Giselle, just wanted to complement you on your excellent detailed reviews. Very helpful! Thank you!
For a future review, I wonder if you’d consider looking at The Great Courses “How to Play Piano” (https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/how-to-play-piano.html). Thanks for considering!
Thanks for the suggestion, Jennifer! We’ve added it to our list of ideas.
In the review it is said that this method only teaches harmonic minor scales, is it a really bad thing? (I don’t know anything about piano so I don’t know how bad it is not to learn other minor scales)
As a total beginner I’m looking for the most comprehensive method, I want to play different types of music, will I be able to do it with piano Marvel?
I have been learning through various apps (and with a teacher at some point) and piano marvel is probably my favorite so far. For total beginners its easier to start of with e.g. Simply Piano, but the library is more flexible in piano marvel and there is simply so much more to do especially when you aim is reading sheet music. What I do not like is that the ipad app is terribly slow, especially when it comes to going through the library and going for your favorites. This could in my view be much better managed. Also the dashboard for the learning statistics – e.g. if you want to see your SARS progression over a longer period of time, is just not working well. Other that that you can even leave feedback if you feel something is off with the sheets and you will actually get a response fairly quickly. It would be also great if a “family feature” could be added so the app could be shared among household members to some extent.
Thank you for the excellent review on Piano Marvel. I tried both simply piano and flowkey first and if you really want to learn, Piano Marvel is a much better, structured program. Yes it’s true that the music is often cheesy especially for an adult, but I would rather have a decent foundation of ear training, note reading, rythmn etc and go to youtube or wherever to learn the songs I want. I highly recommend Piano Marvel over Simply Piano and Flowkey. Those two and some of the other apps are much more heavily marketed as being ‘fun’ but I could see very quickly (especially with Flowkey) that I was developing bad habits. The truth is becoming a piano player does not happen without structure, repetition and hard work, no amount of fancy graphics or slick marketing will change that.
Good points, Dan. Thanks for sharing 🙂
I’d add that some people don’t really want to ‘become piano players’ but rather want to be able to play a bunch of their favorite songs (flowkey is designed pretty much for that), which is of course not easy if you’re not willing to practice consistently.
Does this (or any other piano apps) send you reminders to play ? Or are there apps that send you a reminder to sit down and just work on dexterity or scales? often times I don’t have time for a full lesson but if an app would say “hey, take 10 minutes and practice THIS”, I’d be motivated to do so. I see this app has the ‘goals’ and streaks tracking so i was curious what it does to keep you on track and if it sends you suggestions on what to practice. That for me would be a great feature!
Firstly sorry my bad english 🙂
I can say that as a user simple piano (Since last year) this app very good for beginners and who want to just play some favorite songs. But now I’m stuck. I finished all lessons but I’m not enough reading notes or sheets fast. But Piano Marvel will be better for you if you want to be a good player and if you have big goals. Piano Marvel can teach you notes and timing, technique and method too. Shortly; Simple piano says “Come on lets play some songs and enjoy” then it’s work for beginners and maybe childs, but Piano Marvel says “you will learn a pianist mentality but must be patience and walk with us”
Thank you for the review. One important aspect that is missing from the review is the way the music library is structured. Yes it is quite large, however as a beginner i find myself lost on which songs can i discover and play. There are several challenges.
The levels in the songs are not consistent. e.g. songs on level 3 can largely vary in difficulty level. This is because the level is set by the person who uploaded a song. I did myself upload a tune and I assigned a level myself. This obviously leads to a signficant disparty on the level of complexity for songs on a particular level.
The levels in the song library do not correspond to the level in the teaching sections. So after i have done a ‘Method’ or ‘Technique’ lesson on the piano marvel, I am clueless on which songs can i now play.
In contract to this, i find Simply Piano extremely well structured. The song library directly maps to the lessons, which is a big benefit for a beginner like myself.
Thank you for the good review of Piano Marvel. I’ve used Simply Piano and is sorta at the stage where I can play with sheet music, but what I wish it has is to show how to move the fingers, especially moving between octaves. As I advanced in levels, I also found learning songs from a moving strips isn’t helpful. I would have preferred that I am able to learn by measures. Simply Piano does have a PlayBeta section with sheet music. I’d wish it would allow for user to choose the measure they want to practice on with feedback and to show how fingers are postioned.
Thanks for the great reviews. I have been using Playground Sessions for about 6 years and am up to the last advanced lesson. But I’m still not playing very well. So I want to be able to play while I read the music and the goal is playing classical pieces of which I can play one. It came down to Marvel vs Pianote and I chose Marvel for the next 12 months. I finally got an 88key Piano (also based on your reviews (Roland FP30X) and am super impressed with it.
I have an acoustic piano and an iPhone but no pc or iPad.. Should I pass on Piano Marvel for that reason since I won’t be able to take full advantage of it?
My thoughts are, Piano Marvel has a vast library of songs, techniques, scales and is able to analyse your playing and sight reading progress, this means you are more likely to lean and progress without a teacher being by your side, the fact you only have an acoustic piano does limit the benefit, but you could always consider having a silent system fitted which would give you the best of both worlds although it may be more cost effective to buy a separate digital piano which you could use when using PM.
As far as I know there is not a substitute app that can successfully read an acoustic piano for the purpose of leaning to play.
Thank you so much for this review. My daughter is 6 (almost 7) and has been having lessons for a few months, but the book system is too fast (Waterman-Harewood Method “Me and my Piano”). It seems like she’s nailed something and then I discover she’s somehow played it but doesn’t understand it and can’t even explain it. She also struggles to focus. Maybe because she’s 7 or maybe because it’s after school and she’s tired or… who knows? Anyway… I am not sure we will continue with lessons, but I would like her to love piano, grow and play for life. Maybe re-starting lessons when she’s older… Do you think Spimly Piano would actually be more suitable for her at this stage? Thanks 🙂
I have two daughters, who both started playing piano together during the outbreak of Covid aged 6 & 9 years old.
They both started on Simply Piano, which they really zipped through. It seemed very engaging, though one of my daughters worked out that she could just hit a whole bunch of notes at the same time and still get a high score.
Whilst Simply Piano was very engaging, the skills they learnt were quite basic, and it was too easy to cheat. Basically it’s a game, but still has some usefulness at the beginning.
After around 6 months they both switched to Piano Marvel. It’s not as engaging as Simply Piano, however the depth of teaching is so much deeper. My eldest started piano lessons after another couple of months, though gave up because the piano teacher couldn’t keep up with the pace of learning provided by piano marvel.
After about 3 years my eldest has reached around grade 5, and my youngest grade 4.
Perhaps now, that the pace of progress has slowed, it’s the right time to start piano lessons again?