The basic idea behind flowkey is straightforward enough: it helps you learn to play the piano by teaching you how to play certain songs with explanatory videos and then detecting and correcting your mistakes through its note recognition system. But its aspirations go much further: this didactic platform uses an interactive visual system to let you replicate what you see onscreen, and even get lessons on technique and theory to help you become a talented pianist … or at least get started on your journey toward becoming one.
flowkey’s whole package is based on offering real piano performances that highlight both the keys to be played and the corresponding notes on the sheet music advancing in unison. You can even adjust the speed of the performance. All this makes even more sense when you go to play the song yourself and let the app evaluate your performance. To do that you can use either your phone’s internal mic and play from a freestanding piano or connect the device via USB if the piano has a MIDI port.
As the app can detect your progress, the formula gets a new dimension in terms of serving as a virtual teacher, not because of the songs it can teach you, but because it can interact with the piano lessons included in flowkey. These run the gamut from basics like how to sit in front of a piano to exercises to learn your scales or speed up your reading of sheet music.
At the level of requirements, it’s advisable to use the flowkey Android app on a tablet, as a smartphone screen is a bit too small to simultaneously display the score and the video with the real performance. But not having a tablet is no problem either, as there’s a web version you can access from any web browser.
Though flowkey itself is free, the content included in the free version is a bit scanty (eight songs and a few of the basic lessons). If you want the full catalogue of more than 500 songs to practice and all the lessons you can check out the monthly subscription options HERE.
flowkey on Uptodown [APK] | Download
More info | Official site
