Looking to learn Piano online

[peterk426]

Hey Ladies and gents, so recently i've had a huge urge to learn piano. I've first started with watching music theory and understanding chords and scales and the like, but now I want to play songs. I've tried to play along with youtube videos but since i am super new I fall behind quickly.. My brother bought this 500$ yamaha piano and has an app i believe that is exclusively to yamaha products I believe. So my question is: Where can I find a piano software tutorial online where I can play along with the songs and it will go at my pace? I hope this makes sense. I also dont care if there is a monthly fee for it. Thanks!

[Adam W]

I've been having a really good experience with a program called Piano Marvel. It comes to around $15 a month (I think), but it's cheaper if you go in for a yearly subscription. I'm about a year and half into it. Progress comes really slowly, but that would be the case no matter what- it's just the nature of learning the piano.

The program itself is pretty bare bones (no fancy graphics or anything): it's pretty much just sheet music with a moving cursor. It also allows several different options for slowing the tempo, cutting up the sheet music into smaller parts to practice repeatedly, doing just the left or right hand parts, etc. The lessons are divided up into "Method" and "Technique" sections, starting out with simple exercises and moving through more complex ones. It attracted me because I really wanted to work on reading music as well as my playing.

But the real appeal for me was its massive library of songs you can access once you're a paid member. The library heavily favors classical music; this was a main selling point for me, but it might not be what you're after. There's another program called Playground Sessions that seems to be geared more toward popular songs. I looked into it, but even after you've paid your subscription fee, you have to pay like 3 more bucks for the sheet music of each song you want to learn. Also, Piano Marvel will let you trial it full-featured for 30 days at no cost - if memory serves, Playground Sessions does not have an option for a free trial.

As far as I can tell, these two programs seem to be the biggest competitors in the piano-learning software market. Obviously, I've only used the one, but I can say that it's really improved my technique and my reading, and I even have a couple flashy Bach pieces in my bag of tricks now. And I swear, I'm just a guy on the Reason forum who happens to use this thing - I don't work for them or anything. Best of luck to you, whichever option you go with!