You're beginning to learn the piano. You've played for a few weeks, few months,
and you're wondering if piano learning apps are worth your time. They're much more affordable
compared to teachers but are they good enough? Hi my name is Jazer! I've played the piano for
18 years and I've taught for more than 10 years. And today I want to share with you some pros and
cons of these piano learning apps. And by the end of this video you will know if they are
worth your time. Before we get into the pros and cons of these apps, make sure you SUBSCRIBE to
this channel for more piano talks just like this. What are piano learning apps and what do they do?
Well, these days most people sign up for gym memberships without working with a personal
trainer. Or people learn to cook without working with a professional chef. Using the same model,
piano learning apps aim to democratize piano learning where they teach a basic piano beginner
course without the expensive price tag of a human coach. This model of learning has some
good things and some bad things. Let's dive into the cons first. The first cons of learning from a
piano learning app is that "You may experience low motivation". You're not working with a real human
teacher and so you don't have someone to feel accountable to. You don't have someone
to emotionally support you along your piano learning journey and you don't have someone to
mentor you. So personally speaking, I am most productive and I get most of my work done
when I feel I am accountable to someone when I know something I'm doing is going to be
assessed or read by someone. If you are someone that really needs an accountability partner to
get good work done and be productive, these piano learning apps may not be for you. Because you have
to be incredibly self-motivated to get lots of good progress on piano. Cons Number 2 is
that "There is not a lot of emphasis on technique" (on physical technique things like your posture,
your wrist, and your finger positions). I want to share a story with you. I personally play the
sport badminton and I play casually for about two years. And in my third year of playing, I went to
get coaching when my coach started working with me he was shocked. He was shocked at how many things
I was doing wrong. My footwork was all over the place. My smash shot was completely off. I was
doing so many things the wrong way that he had to spend an entire year just to correct these
mistakes. Technique is a really important aspect of piano playing as you're playing for weeks,
and months, and years, you're going to start to develop habits that you subconsciously don't
really think about. So just be wary that when you're learning from piano apps, you're not
getting that personalized attention on if you're doing the correct techniques on the piano. And
this ties in into my Cons Number 3 which is that "There is no one there to correct your mistakes".
From experience, beginner piano students struggle with things like the positioning of the hands,
where to place your hands. Or maybe sometimes it's playing the wrong notes or maybe playing
notes with the wrong fingers, right? Without a mentor teacher there mentoring you and correcting
your mistakes, you might be doing the wrong thing for a long time and no one even knows about it.
Let's jump into the Pros now. Pros Number 1 is that "Piano learning apps are extremely
affordable". I personally have SKOOVE premium and SKOOVE premium charges 19.99 per month. Or if
you pay for an entire year, they charge 9.99. Now this is significantly more affordable than paying
a teacher. Okay, a teacher is going to charge anywhere, depending on where you are in the world,
and the experience they have, anywhere from 30 to 130 dollars. And that's per hour. And
if you think about SKOOVE charging 9.99 per month, strictly in terms of costs that's just a
really good deal. Pros Number 2 is that "Piano learning apps are there for you 24/7'. So in
a traditional face-to-face lesson, you will get the support and the instruction from the teacher
in the half an hour or one hour that you're there with them in their studio. But piano learning apps
are there with you literally the entire day. If you wanted to have lessons for three or
four hours a day, you totally can do it. You can go completely at your own pace with these apps.
Some of you are full-time workers and you have kids and you're thinking, 'I really need
some kind of piano learning schedule that really fits my schedule'. This could be for you some of
you are working part-time or you're retired and you have lots of hours in the day to spend on
piano. These apps are also a great option for you. Just wanted to show you what it looks like inside
one of these piano learning apps. I personally use SKOOVE. I really like them. You can see they have
beginner intermediate and advanced course. They even have theory stuff like reading sheet music,
and learning a bit of chords and scales. Just for today, let's have a look at the Intermediate
2 Course. I want to share with you "Clocks" from Coldplay. Okay, so my mic is actually hooked up
to the app. And here we are actually learning a little bit of theory before we get into the
song which I really like. Marrying theory with playing piano is always going to be the best way
to learn theory. So after learning some theory, we start to learn how to play the song before we
learn how to play. Yet we first have to listen to the song. So a nice demonstration from the
pianist on the screen, I can see the right notes to play and the fingerings he's using as well.
So I now get to try it so I've put my hands on the piano and I'm gonna start to play along.
And I can be watching his fingering as well as he's playing to make sure that I'm doing the right
things now. The Third Pros for piano learning apps is that "There are tons of lessons and
songs that you are going to love to play in these apps". These apps are always trying to improve.
They're trying to stay ahead of the competition. So they're really going to care about you and how
engaged you are in their course. So when you sign up with them, it's likely that you will get to
choose and play what you want to play, as opposed to what a potential teacher wants you to play. So
there you go, I've given you some pros and cons of these piano learning apps. Would you like to
try one? If you want to try one, go and click the link in the description below. I personally
have SKOOVE. I use SKOOVE with my students as well because I think they're fun and they do a really
good job of teaching piano. Go and check it out. It's completely free. And if you really like what
they do, you can sign up for their premium course as well. That's all for today. Don't forget to
LIKE and SUBSCRIBE to this channel for more piano talks like this. And I'll catch you in the next
video.