Audiobus: Use your music apps together.

What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.

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Good piano/music education apps for kids?

[Deleted User][Deleted User]
in General App Discussion

Anyone have recommendations for apps suitable to teach a 5 year old basic music creation and/or piano? I want to start laying some foundation for my kid. She has a decent 25 key Casio keyboard and I want to teach her basics but I don't play piano. I'm interested in any good music education app for younger kids even if it's not necessarily piano

Comments

  • heshes
    edited June 2020

    Five years is pretty young. But here's a video I thought was pretty cool of how one guy has fostered his daughter's musical growth using Sonic Pi, running on a Raspberry Pi. She's a little older, but maybe it will give some ideas:

    Sonic Pi is a coding environment for synths on Raspberry Pi (or just a Mac or Windows PC). It was originally intended for kids; five years old is on young end, but I expect there's been plenty use of it in various ways with kids that age, there is a huge Sonic Pi community and I expect there's a decent subset that involve using it with 4 to 6 year old range, might have to search a bit to find it. It would require a little setup and teaching by you, but it might be a way to get some interesting stuff going for five year old, different from banging on a keyboard. https://sonic-pi.net/

    Really, seems like you could do something similar to what's in the video just using some "adult" music creation apps on ipad/iphone, combined with some imagination in figuring out what might be understandable and fun for a young kid.

  • Lil_Stu07Lil_Stu07

    Playground sessions is pretty good. Flow key wasn't my jam but might be better for someone wanting to just learn songs. Both are subscription based though.

  • Lil_Stu07Lil_Stu07

    Also pianoforall on udemy is really good.

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]

    @hes said:
    Five years is pretty young. But here's a video I thought was pretty cool of how one guy has fostered his daughter's musical growth using Sonic Pi, running on a Raspberry Pi. She's a little older, but maybe it will give some ideas:

    Sonic Pi is a coding environment for synths on Raspberry Pi (or just a Mac or Windows PC). It was originally intended for kids; five years old is on young end, but I expect there's been plenty use of it in various ways with kids that age, there is a huge Sonic Pi community and I expect there's a decent subset that involve using it with 4 to 6 year old range, might have to search a bit to find it. It would require a little setup and teaching by you, but it might be a way to get some interesting stuff going for five year old, different from banging on a keyboard. https://sonic-pi.net/

    Really, seems like you could do something similar to what's in the video just using some "adult" music creation apps on ipad/iphone, combined with some imagination in figuring out what might be understandable and fun for a young kid.

    Thanks. Yeah 5 is young so I wouldn't be putting any expectations on her. But she likes to mess around with apps on my ipad with me when she sees me using it. She's actually pretty good using Ampify Launchpad. Since we've been on lockdown she's been using ABC Mouse apps for reading, writing, math stuff and she's learned at a much faster pace then she was when she was going to preschool in person so I'm trying to unlock the power of the iPad to for some music education since she seems to be interested

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]

    @Lil_Stu07 said:
    Also pianoforall on udemy is really good.

    thanks, I'll check out those apps

  • steve99steve99

    I tried a few piano apps out for my 9 year old daughter at the beginning of lockdown; Simply Piano, Flowkey, Yousician, Skoove. We did a free trial of all of them. In the end I signed her up for 3 months of Simply Piano as she took to that straight off and I thought the cost was reasonable. She's got pretty good at reading the scrolling notation and playing along, though interestingly this hasn't translated to a marked improvement in reading sheet music.

    I liked Yousician which is multi-instrument, but they didn't offer a 3 month plan, a year on these apps is too much of a commitment for me. You can't have multi user on Simply Piano without paying extra, so I'm on Skoove after I found a 3 month free trial in my Korg Nanokey Studio box. Learning to play Bill Withers around the time he passed proved quite emotional.

    Ultimately, as ever, all the apps offer a lot, it's putting the time in that makes the difference and I'm struggling with that, though my daughter's continuing to do well as she likes any excuse to use the iPad.

  • Lil_Stu07Lil_Stu07

    With that said, if you own a Yamaha keyboard, I believe most come with a 3 months trial for Flowkey. Just register for it through the Yamaha website.

  • MasangaMasanga

    Some useful past threads on this:
    https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/37787/ipad-piano-training-app-for-kids-during-lockdown
    https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/34945/visual-synth-app-to-show-kids-basic-sound-manipulation
    https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/32665/good-apps-for-children-synth-or-otherwise

  • MasangaMasanga
    edited June 2020

    More (too?) ambitiously, if you want to set some cheese in the trap to get her hooked on keyboards (which ought to be a 70s lounge album, and maybe is), ROLI's LUMI will burn her little retinas out while still leaving you a compact non-MPE Bluetooth controller when she gets bored with it.

  • eyesundergroundeyesunderground

    Chrome Music Lab is pretty good for kids. It's not specifically keyboard-focused, but does a good job of giving the basics of sound and production to kids.

  • onkeyonkey

    Check out Piano Maestro by JoyTunes. It’s pretty much Simply Piano but with a kid-friendly interface. Lots of free content to get started.

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]

    @onkey said:
    Check out Piano Maestro by JoyTunes. It’s pretty much Simply Piano but with a kid-friendly interface. Lots of free content to get started.

    Thanks, I'll check it out

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]

    @eyesunderground said:
    Chrome Music Lab is pretty good for kids. It's not specifically keyboard-focused, but does a good job of giving the basics of sound and production to kids.

    Thanks. Played with that last night and she had fun. Then I let her play with Ampify Groovebox for a while and she really was into that

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • PoppadocrockPoppadocrock

    This one looks interesting it says there is English Language available. It’s currently FREE. Usually $1.99.

    https://apps.apple.com/us/app/groovy-gang-infanti/id1522096730

  • Sophie7LeblancSophie7Leblanc

    @[Deleted User] said:
    Anyone have recommendations for apps suitable to teach a 5 year old basic music creation and/or piano? I want to start laying some foundation for my kid. She has a decent 25 key Casio keyboard and I want to teach her basics but I don't play piano. I'm interested in any good music education app for younger kids even if it's not necessarily piano

    As an application for online piano training for kids, I would like to recommend la touche musicale. The three main reasons are: it’s fun, it’s easy and it’s free.
    Here you can find the detailed review, but I would like to highlight the main advantages of this application.

    • A lot of free practice: you can practice various songs you or your child likes from the free library. This will help in the process of developing an own style. After becoming more experienced, it’s possible to choose and play more difficult songs.
    • It's a good way of learning piano online for free by using a virtual piano keyboard. It is a keyboard like those used in virtual piano schools. The advantage of using the virtual keyboard is that you can learn keys at your speed. And it’s possible to repeat the hard part of the songs as many times as necessary.
    • It’s possible to play piano anytime you like, you're not limited to practicing on a particular date and time. So, learning piano online is a very flexible method of learning how to play the piano. As long as there is a piano keyboard you can use, you will be learning.
      And the last point is that this application is really easy to use, which is important when the kid is using it. The interface is simple and will not take the attention of the child, preventing them from focusing on the learning process.
      Hope I was able to help. Good luck!
  • EmilyEmily

    There are several music education apps suitable for teaching basic music creation and piano to young children.

    Simply Piano This app uses interactive lessons to teach users how to play the piano. It's suitable for beginners of all ages, and includes features like real-time feedback and a library of popular songs.

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