Reconciling piano practice with iOS apps: Does VoiceOver like the tune?

By Amir, 24 April, 2017

I started taking piano lessons for the first time in the so-called days of yore -- that is, when I was 12 years old and, like many teenagers, didn't appreciate the value of getting my feet wet in the field at that opportune age. I was simultaneously attending English classes and, given the fact that I didn't have a piano at home to practice, I even came to the conclusion that the time I might spend at, or on, the piano can be devoted to English. As an Iranian I knew how mastering English could provide me with a whole host of opportunities -- something I don't regret to this day. I used to listen to Kim Andrew Elliott's awesome program, Communications World, on Short Wave, courtesy of my improving English skills. The particular episode mentioned here was aired in 1999, is dedicated to the visually impaired and technology, and is quite interesting.

To put it in a nutshell, all of that language tinkering meant that I decided not to continue my piano classes after six months, and the fact that I had to transcribe my own Beyer didn't help at all. Later I entered university, received my BA and MA in English Literature and TESL respectively, and had no time to think about my rough patch with piano lessons though piano remained my most favorite instrument.

However, almost eight months ago I came across an engaging BBC article titled Adult piano lessons: Never too late to learn? and decided to become one of those adult piano learners at the age of 36. The points raised in the article resonated with me in a way that I thought someone had written it to reinvigorate my love of piano.

Incorporating iOS apps into piano practice

After reviewing my options, I decided to purchase a digital piano for various reasons, and it was a Yamaha Clavinova CLP-575. Even though this time I had access to a Braille Beyer, once I was about to start my tortuous quest for a teacher who, among other things, could also understand the needs of a visually impaired learner, I discovered Bill Brown's Music by Ear page and, much to my own surprise, his Piano by Ear website! For those who don't know, Bill teaches a wide range of instruments by ear, and his guitar and piano offerings really reach both advanced playing levels and complex songs. In short, I was ecxtatic!

At any event, few weeks after my first encounter with Bill's courses and songs, I decided to see if both the iOS operating system and my iPhone 7 Plus can accompany me in this challenging journey or complement the training I'm receiving. Well, after 8 months or so I must admit that I'm still trying, but it seems to me that finding accessible apps for that purpose is even more challenging than playing Mariage d'amour -- please note that Bill's arrangement based on Richard Clayderman's version is more difficult!
Let's see why.

iOS apps for piano playing and learning songs

Here we're basically out of luck. I first tried Yousician - Your personal music teacher:

Yousician is your personal music tutor for the digital age. Learn at your own pace, whenever and wherever you want. The app listens to you play and gives instant feedback on your accuracy and timing. Our curriculum, designed by expert music teachers, will help musicians of all levels improve, from complete beginners to professionals.
The moment I opened it, VoiceOver froze and refused to talk and I had to press the home button. With sighted assistance, I was able to move forward a few screens; however, even at that stage VoiceOver was extremely sluggish, and I noticed so many strangely labeled buttons that I decided to call it quits.

I then focused on Simply Piano, which I think is the best and the most comprehensive piano teaching-oriented app of its ilk.

Simply Piano is a fast and fun way to learn piano, from beginner to pro. Works with any piano or keyboard.
- Tons of fun songs like Imagine, Timber, Counting Stars, Safe and Sound, also J.S.Bach.
- Includes courses for different musical tastes and playing levels.
- Learn the basics step-by-step from reading sheet music to playing with both hands.
- Slow down library songs to choose your own pace for easy learning.
- Personalized 5-Min Workouts ensuring you progress fast and always succeed.
- Suitable for all ages, no previous knowledge required to learn piano.
No Piano? Try the Touch Courses with 3D Touch to turn your device into an on-screen keyboard!
Unlike Yousician, Simply Piano allowed me to move past the Registration process, but VoiceOver again became sluggish as the Study mode was activated. This freezing effectively prevented me from purchasing a monthly access package to test Simply Piano. It's worth mentioning that both Yousician and Simply Piano set the screen orientation to "landscape" -- something which gives me more headaches as I don't like that mode on my iPhone 7 Plus. Moreover, though both apps are free, you need to pay on a monthly basis in case you want to take advantage of their offerings. These payments range from $6 per month to $19 or even $29 -- depending on your choice of course and plan.

Any discussion of piano teaching apps would be incomplete without mentioning Piano Melody which allows users to learn and play songs by ear. It also has a Pro app which costs $2.99. The problem with this app is that once you get into a song whose notes should be played, you can't figure out which notes you should pick as VoiceOver apparently fails to read or locate them. Moreover, one needs to turn off VoiceOver if the piano portion of the app is to be used. With VoiceOver, one should press on a key twice in order to activate it. Without VoiceOver, however, a mess is generated as one can't distinguish between sharps and flats, and expanding/shrinking the keyboard area becomes impossible without speech. Add this to my growing list of unusable apps when accessibility comes into play.

Learning scales and chords

A good piano player should memorize and master scales and chords. This is more important for those who want to play by ear. So I tried to see how or if I could use apps to learn them faster especially when I'm not near my piano. I had more success this time around.

The most useful app I tested in this category is Piano Chords and Scales. A free app whose extra features can be unlocked by paying $4.99 as an In-App purchase, this allows us to explore chords, scales and chord progressions. All chords and scales can be played ascending, descending and harmonically and are shown on virtual piano and staff. Of course, I have no idea how scales and chords are displayed on the screen because I just use it to hear the notes in a particular scale/chord, and get the app to play them for me. This is good for memorizing scales and chords -- nothing fancy. The portion of the app which allows us to compose songs isn't quite accessible.

If you open the app which is simply titled "Chords," you'll be presented with items like Chords, Scales, Progressions, Circle of Fifths, Songs and Settings. These are buttons although VoiceOver doesn't use the word "button" as they're reached. In the Scales window, for instance, you'll see a Reverse button along with a C button -- these are indicated as buttons. The latter helps us move to a different scale. Various modes for each scale -- like Major, Natural Minor, Ionian (Major), Dorian, and so on are at our disposal. I like this app as it displays some useful degree of accessibility.

Another useful app I've seen in this category is weirdly titled Piano Chords, Scales Companion, Chord Progressions, and its Pro counterpart costs $4.99. This app which appears as "Piano Companion" on the screen

is a flexible piano chords and scales dictionary with user libraries and reverse mode with a flexible chord progression builder. If you canโ€™t remember the name of a chord or scale, this app helps you find it by keys. For example, just press C, G and you will get C Major as the first chord in the search result. If you donโ€™t see a chord, you can create a custom chord and use it for chord charts or your user library.

It's also accessible to the point that VoiceOver reads which notes are being pushed on the keyboard when describing chords and scales. However, the app seems to be more tailored to intermediate or advanced learners because if, for instance, you go to a scale, you won't see its Major mode listed first. For C, for instance, it lists C Acoustic first which might confuse some. It's a stellar app otherwise with lots of positive reviews on the App Store.

It's worth mentioning that a wide range of apps exist which have been designed to make the task of remembering and mastering scales/chords easier, and I've tested more than 10 apps of that sort. But many of them like Piano Friend aren't intuitive in terms of their controls or like Piano Scales & Chords insist on their irksome landscape mode and intrusive ads. Many of them haven't been updated for ages, and everything I include in this article has been updated over the past few months.

And how about ear training?

Again lots of apps exist to give piano players a helping hand in this regard, but out of the 10 I've tested I can recommend just one: Earpeggio - Free Ear Training (Intervals, Chords). It allows us to:

Master the identification of intervals, chords, scales and rhythms solely by hearing them. Earpeggio is an ear training app which lets you improve your musical hearing.
It's accessible and free, and can be utilized with little tinkering.

So what to expect from all of this?

Mastering the piano requires lots of practice, meaning the more you play, the more proficient you'll become. As things stand right now, finding useful and accessible iOS apps which can enhance the playing skills of the visually impaired is a painful challenge. Some more or less accessible apps exist in the arena of chord/scale practice, but unless developers take into account the requirements imposed by VoiceOver, their apps won't be usable at all -- as is evidenced by Yousician and Just Piano which provide awesome courses though at a hefty price.

One more conclusion I've reached is that the iPhone, even the Plus variant, might not be suitable for such apps. Many of them insist on switching to the landscape mode, but, to me at least, holding the larger iPhone in that mode seems and feels awkward. Maybe one can get better results with the iPad. Turning off VoiceOver to be able to touch/play the keys is another challenge.

All in all, my iPhone is a good RSS reader, works well as a fabulous book reader, offers useful dictionary look-up capabilities, has replaced my traditional radio, provides some truly accessible podcast apps, and does a good job of image/text recognition, but when it comes to playing the piano and mastering this grand instrument, it's not as useful as one might think. After all, the transition from acoustic pianos to digital or electronic pianos on iOS hasn't gone as smoothly as the transition from physical books to electronic ones, and the fact that VoiceOver carries its own tune makes things worse. Hopefully that might change in the future. In the meantime, Bill Brown's Music for the Blind faces virtually no competition from our smartphones!

Options

Comments

By Morgan Watkins on Friday, April 21, 2017 - 16:51

Amir,

My wife and I have a piano in our home that does not get as much attention as it deserves. We have talked recently about putting it back to good purpose. Your perspective and review of possible iOS apps was quite helpful.

Your blog was informative, energizing and fun!

Thank you very much,

Morgan

By Amir on Friday, April 21, 2017 - 16:51

Hi Morgan.

I'm glad you found the article informative and useful.
The more I progress, the better I appreciate the piano and its magical power. Hope I can find more piano-oriented accessible iOS apps to share them with AppleVis users.

By Nicholas on Friday, April 21, 2017 - 16:51

Hello Amir,
This is a great blog! Thank you for all your time and efforts on this. I followed almost every link you provided. I was thoroughly intrigued. I will be looking into the ear training app myself, though I will be applying it to my 12-string guitar.
Thank you again for a wonderful blog post. Really nice! I look forward to your future posts!
Best wishes, Nicholas.

By Amir on Friday, April 21, 2017 - 16:51

In reply to by Nicholas

Hi Nicholas,
I'm glad you liked the article!
I also suggest that you take a look at Bill Brown's Guitar By Ear website as it's a truly comprehensive source.
Cheers,

By Kerry Fielding on Sunday, January 21, 2018 - 16:51

Hi. I'm feeling your pain. I play the Uke and decided, because I was having trouble focussing on practice goals, to give Yousician a shot. You it would seem, got slightly further than I did. Nothing would speak once the app was installed. I got my daughter to go through the first two screens with me to see if, after the setup process, I could access the learning materials. Same old. The only things that are accessible in this app are the text fields to input your details and the controls on the videos. However, the chromatic tuner is possibly one of the best I've come across. Instead of simply using a visual indicator that you are in tune, you get an audible one also so you can actually tune your stringed instrument without sighted assistance should they ever choose to fix the accessibility issues that is. I have actually written to them and might I suggest that you do the same. I pointed out the rave recommendations I had been given, how this app would benefit lots of blind people, how good the tuner was and that some points of it were accessible. I am actually about to go and stick a review for it in the apps directory in the hopes that it might encourage others to jump on and write these guys an email. I'll let you know how I get on.

By sockhopsinger on Sunday, January 21, 2018 - 16:51

Another option that might get more immediate feedback is posting something on Yousician's Twitter page if they have one.

By Kerry Fielding on Sunday, January 21, 2018 - 16:51

In reply to by sockhopsinger

Hi. Done that. Posted on their FB page also. Received a response from support this morning and was directed to their feedback page at feedback.yousician.com. Seems someone posted this question in June 2016 with no luck. I'll post the link to the feedback page and people can vote/comment as they feel appropriate.

https://yousician.uservoice.com/forums/296820-welcome-to-yousician-feedback-forum/suggestions/14738049-please-fix-your-app-so-that-he-can-be-used-by-peop

By Robin Williams on Saturday, January 21, 2023 - 16:51

Thank you for this excellent post. Some years on, I am intrigued as to whether there are any apps that people now recommend for learning the piano. I have received a digital piano for Christmas and am keen to get started.

By Amir on Saturday, January 21, 2023 - 16:51

Thanks for your interest. Few months ago I switched to a newer Yamaha digital piano, but the status quo hasn't changed at all - at least as far as my own research is concerned. I still heavily rely on Bill Brown's piano lessons and songs - really love them to be honest. One thing, however, that I haven't yet tried is an app called Smart Pianist, developed by Yamaha. It's primarily used to adjust various Yamaha piano settings via Bluetooth if one's piano supports it.

By PaulMartz on Saturday, January 21, 2023 - 16:51

I took drum lessons as a kid and have played for 50 years. For a while, I also played a little guitar, but gave it up. I imagine callouses would interfere with reading Braille.

I've always been fascinated by piano, but, without access to one, never got beyond the pick-out-a-chord and plink phase. However, last year, at age 59, I moved into a house that came with a full piano. Like you, I couldn't find an instructor willing to take on a blind student, so I began teaching myself chords and scales. In a year's time I've made pretty good progress. I can often pick out songs by ear and transcribe them into a more comfortable key signature if needed. There are are online websites that provide chords and lyrics for many popular songs if I get stuck.

Of the resources you listed, Bill Brown's looks like it might be truly useful, and I'll have to spend time on his website.

By Amir on Saturday, January 21, 2023 - 16:51

Greetings, Karina. Thanks for bringing up HDpiano. I also tried it and like their 30-day money-back guarantee, but it doesn't provide the same level of explanations compared with Piano By Ear as far as fingering is concerned. Of course, the more one progresses, the more useful HDpiano becomes. I'd say after Piano By Ear it's currently the best option for the visually impaired especially considering the size of their catalog.
And, for anyone interested, Piano By Ear is at https://www.musicvi.com/store/piano-by-ear

By Amir on Saturday, January 21, 2023 - 16:51

Paul, you're not alone with the guitar and callouses! ๐Ÿ˜๐Ÿ˜†
The nice point about Bill Brown's stuff is that he also offers courses for various instruments including the piano. So for those who are interested in courses, it can serve as a good option.

By gailisaiah on Saturday, January 21, 2023 - 16:51

Just so you know, Bill Brown's lessons can be found at the Talking Books Library or you can download them from BARD.