This is a completely honest and non sponsored review on simply piano so if
you want to learn the piano and you've heard of simply piano but you're not
really sure if it's right for you yet then this video is for you.
We're going to go over four specific parts so you can see what's beyond the
curtain of simply piano we're going to go over the layout in designs you'll see
what it actually looks like number two we're going to go over how simply piano
teaches you how to learn a song and the really guts of the app number three
we'll talk about the pricing and how much it costs and then number four is
just some parts that I think I wish they had
and if simply piano is right for you based on where you are current skill
level of being a piano player I play the piano and I'm a full time
singer-songwriter myself so if you're curious to what my music sounds like you
can check me out on Spotify or YouTube if you'd like before you get into this
video but right now let's jump into number one where we'll talk about the
layout and design of simply piano so in order to get simpler piano you do have
to have a mobile device or tablet like an iPhone or iPad unfortunately not
available on desktop so you can't be using it on your computer for me
actually that is quite a concern because I'd rather I'm just more comfortable on
the computer and more quicker with the mouse and I don't like having my phone
on with me all the time just because of distractions so after you download
simply piano there is a nice little onboarding where they ask you a couple
different questions of if you've had any piano experience and what kind of piano
player you'd like to be which I thought that was really cool because right off
the bat it was asking you what your goals were to be as a piano player like
do you just want to play songs or do you want to read sheet music because
everyone has their different roles and that really depends on how you're going
to practice this is what simply piano looks like when you open the app and on
the left side we have courses and then we have songs but we have piano basics
which is the first part if you are a very beginner player they will teach you
just how to go through some different notes and we'll get into that in the
learning section but this is just the layout and design so left to right we
have different courses essentials a little bit of what's next we can get a
video and then about being a soloist or chords those
are two different really tracks so on the top we have soloist and the bottom
we have chords and we'll show you the different track types as we go left to
right and you can see as we're scrolling here you can see what track type you
might want to pursue we have chord stylings on the bottom we
have different pop chords on the bottom so depending on if you want to learn pop
songs or if you'd like to learn more classical theoretical training you might
want to be a soloist but if you want to learn yeah just pop songs and stuff
perhaps the cording is the better track for you so let's say we are interested
in learning pop songs we can go to this pop chords 3 and click into it and then
we'll get a course at the beginning here we have reminder and then we have to
create out sections here we can keep scrolling and see the course ahead of us
that are all grayed out because we have to start in a linear approach so we
would start at the beginning reminder and a chord reminder and then
we would get a quick onboarding video and this onboarding video happens at
every course which is nice because sometimes you just forget what the
chords are or you don't remember what the notes are this onboarding video will
be someone speaking and will show you where you place your hands on the
keyboard you can always skip this by going to the bottom right here and so
then we would get into the next section of the course here which is actually
playing the notes so we're gonna play the CD CD E minor G chords you can
always pause and go back to the course section by pressing this little
hamburger menu now we're back at the courses section and we can go top right
left to go back to our pop chords course and then we can go top right here change
course to get back to the main menu and then we can be scrolling left to get
back to the beginning or wherever we'd like to go so that's the courses layout
the songs layout is more or less the same left to right scrolling through
different songs and then at the top here we have essentials different navigation
so essentials 1 essentials to pop chords 1 essentials 3 and so on and so forth up
to classical chord styling intermediates and you'll notice if I go to example
intermediate 3 you'll see that this California Dreaming Mamas and Papas song
it says requires intermediate 3 so I actually can't play
this song it I can get into it if I'd like but it recommends saying that this
song will be quite difficult if you haven't taken this prerequisite course
if you feel up to it you can always press I can do this and that's the
layout of what simply piano looks like courses and songs we have the top left
here is typical sections you can edit your profile there is little workouts
and a community a social aspect to the app and that can be valuable to some
people because you want to share your successes socially or you're a
competitive person and you want to compete with other people on the app as
well and then there is a search function at the top right where you can type into
your keyboard any song that you'd like to play you can also click and drag
songs to your heart section you can click that and drag it in there now
let's get on to arguably the more important section of this video which is
how does simply piano teach you how to play the piano and what does it look
like in the learning interface so simply piano is good for both people who want
to jump into learning songs right away or those who want to build the
fundamentals and foundations of learning the piano and focus on theory and
technique first maybe drills before actually getting into learning songs you
can do both they're quite interconnected because the songs are based on the
courses so before you get into a song it will recommend you take a course before
playing that song or you can just dive right into that song for example if we
go to songs on the left here and we want to play free falling by Tom Petty it
says in grade out here it says requires essential-1 and if we can click into it
it will tell us again we recommend you first learn essentials one which is
saying go to the course a section and learn essentials one so if you go top
right exit that and go back to courses we'd go back here and finish essentials
one as you can see I've only completed five percent of essentials one and so
simply piano recommends I go into this course and complete the rest of the
course before learning free fallin so if we oblige them and go finish essentials
one this is what it would look like we would just go through the course left to
right we would start with rhythm we'd watch the rhythm intro video where we
can always skip at the bottom right however if you are a total beginner I do
recommend watching these videos these short
videos of what the section is of the course because for example it teaches
you what a quarter note is and what a quarter rest is and those are things you
will need to learn if you want to learn sheet music as well that's one thing
that I do like about simply piano is it does focus on teaching you the little
things that will make you eventually read sheet music and this is the course
interface of simply piano and it is very simple at the top here we have play
button a restart button we have this navigation where we can go back to the
course track and then we have this little ear where you can hear the notes
being played so if we press this ear we're going to hear those notes so
that's what it looks like for simple little courses let me show you what end
more advanced course looks like essentially it's the same thing we just
have a bass clef now not only the treble clef but the navigation at the top is
still the same all you have to do is press play or restart and if you don't
know what the notes sound like you could live press the little ear and then if
you want to go back you go back this is it could be a great thing for some
people who like it this simple but because it's this simple there's no
added complexity of like you want to just narrow down on a certain notes to
play or you want to lower the tempo unfortunately you can't lower the tempo
and you can't choose certain sections of the sheet music that you want to play
you always have to start from the beginning so that's great that it is
that simple but because it is that simple we're missing out on some of
these other basic features so that's what the learning interface looks like
with simply piano let's look at how simply piano teaches you how to play a
song so when you play a song there are two different options to dive into
playing the song you have the training option or you can dive into play to full
song right away and both of these options will have different interfaces
if you go into the training option it will look like this and so we can see
here this training option will have a sulli looked like the course section
really we just have one treble clef here with notes I can't be scrolling left to
right and I just have to play the notes there to continue on with the sheet
music and if I don't know what they sound like and I can always press this
ear to hear what they sound like essentially
though it's the exact same interface of what the course section would look like
if we want to just start playing the song though we can go back and just
start playing the full song with the screen button here and so this is going
to take us through the full song you'll notice already the navigation is quite
different at the top right here we have tempo and we can choose between 60% 80%
and a hundred percent can also scrolling left to right with our finger and we can
go to any part of the song and press play from this part of the song so let's
say we just want to learn the chorus of the song well we can scroll to wherever
the courses and play that part and learn it from there
one thing I really don't like about simply piano is when I'm in this play
full song mode I want to be playing the song but I actually want to be
practicing parts of this song and I don't want to be in the training course
all the time sometimes I just want to play the full song but only play the
chorus section but I want to be playing the chorus section over and over again
in a loop format so if I go and scroll to the chorus I can play and practice
that section of the song but because I'm in this playful song mode simply piano
is giving me points so even if I rewind back to that bar where I wanted to start
from it's giving me a 25% rewind penalty and I don't really care about the points
but I just want to start I want to practice that chorus and I don't have
the option to loop that chorus and sometimes you just want to be practicing
those certain sections of the song without having to go through the
training course all the time of the song so that's one thing I really didn't like
about simply piano is it didn't have the option to chunk certain parts of the
song to focus on learning those specific parts of the song aside that another
thing I really didn't like about simply piano was the ability to hear a
metronome so you know for sure you're playing in time alternatively there is
the backing track of the song being played so you can hear a version of Tom
Petty singing you can hear the drums in the guitar you're playing along with
that which is nice because it sometimes cool to play along with other people but
I didn't have the option right here in this interface to turn off
backing track if I just wanted to play the piano I don't want to hear all the
other instrumentation so I would have liked them to have an option where I can
turn off the backing track right away the tempo option is valuable let's say
you aren't comfortable playing at 100% yet so you can put it down to 60 percent
and play it there chin you always want to be playing slower before you actually
play at the real 100% tempo but I don't have the option to going at 50 percent
tempo we were even slower than that if we take a step aside and talk about
musician for example on their piano learning interface they had the option
where you can drag it down to I think at least 25% and you can go up to 125
percent at any interval in between so from the perspective of a beginner
that's what simply piano looks like when you're learning beginner courses and
when you're learning beginner songs now let's talk about how much it costs and
how much you're going to have to pay on a monthly or annual basis two different
options they have family plan and then a premium access plan so the family plan
comes in two different options you can do a three-month family plan at a
hundred and seven dollars or a family plan for one year at a hundred and
ninety-four dollars then you have the premium access plans and you can get
them on a three-month six-month to one year basis so you go three months it's
about seventy one ninety nine six month is about 101 ninety nine and then the
premium access for one year which I have is one hundred and twenty nine ninety
nine so more upfront but a little bit cheaper long term on top of that though
there is a seven day free trial so you do have to sign up and put a hold on
your credit card but you can try it for free for seven days just remember to
cancel it before the seven days if you don't want to continue on with simply
piano the last section of this video is to talk about is simply piano right for
you depending on where you are as a beginner piano player and the some
things I wish they had and some things that I like about simply piano as well I
do like that it is very simple and there's no way that you can get confused
within the app design it's very simple to get around and to choose things and
it's a nice design I did find it a bit childish in a way which could be good if
you like a childish design or you are a child so the design is great
but when it comes to learning the piano I didn't like the fact that there wasn't
very much focus on giving you the flexibility to play in lower tempo and
not giving you the ability to play with a metronome or click and also not being
able to turn off the backing track because sometimes you just want to be
playing the piano without the song backing track I didn't think the note
recognition was great if you're using an iPhone or iPad or tablet or whatever and
you don't have your keyboard plugged in because it actually just recognizes any
sound around the room get the plug so you can actually plug in your devices
because that will be a lot better another thing I wish they had was some
type of software that told you how hard you were pressing the notes because
there wasn't any feedback on how hard you were pressing the notes the velocity
that you're pressing the keys because you could just be going through it and
pressing the keys really really hard or way too soft and piano is all about the
feel and how much pressure you put on these notes and there wasn't any
feedback to how hard or soft you are playing these notes and I think that's
just the general unfortunate thing of learning the piano in line is you never
get that feedback from the teacher who might be right beside you
so should you use simply piano if you are a total beginner piano player versus
someone that might have a little bit of experience who are just is just learning
to get better if you're that total beginner piano player I think simply
piano could be really good for you because it's fun to play and it's easy
to find things but once you get to a certain level it might be worth seeing
whether you should go to a different piano learning app that can build your
technique in a more appropriate way where it shows you how hard you should
be hitting the notes where you can lower the tempo and really focus on playing in
time properly and then maybe after you have that foundation that technique you
can come back to simply piano and use the sheet music they have if you're
wondering what might be some other good piano learning apps for you I've done
another review on floki and musician and some comparisons on those so I'll leave
a couple of video links in the description please feel free to
subscribe and check out some music available everywhere hope to see
you in the next video