Piano Practice Assistant icon

Piano Practice Assistant

1.17 for Android
4.1 | 5,000+ Installs | Reviews

Coherence Academy

Description of Piano Practice Assistant

• Keep track of your entire repertoire, down to subsections of sections of pieces
• Practice the parts that need the most work
• Use scientific "best practices" of spaced repetition and interleaving to maximize the effectiveness of your practice time
Piano Practice Assistant is a spaced repetition and interleaved practice system for musicians.
Think of it as a simple practice journal combined with an intelligent music tutor. Amateur and professional musicians use it to master pieces more effectively and to keep their repertoire in top shape. By using our practice planning algorithm based on the principles of spaced repetition and interleaved practice, you'll make the most of your practice time and build strong habits of deliberate practice. Originally designed for pianists, Piano Practice Assistant is now used by musicians of all instruments to structure and log their practice.
Why? Too often our musical practice suffers from problems:
- We play the fun parts over and over, neglecting tricky parts that need more practice
- We play a piece from start to finish, ignoring mistakes or maybe correcting them once, even though this is effectively “practicing” the mistakes and reinforcing them in muscle memory
- We try to cram a passage into memory by playing it over and over all at once, even though this has been shown to be ineffective
- We allow our old favorite to become rusty, and it takes much more work to polish than if we had just revisited it even once every few months
- We allow ourselves to plateau, rather than constantly push at the edges of our abilities
- We practice without concrete goals in mind, with no feedback cycle in place, and without countless other well-studied elements of effective practice
Piano Practice Assistant is an intelligent music practice journal designed to help with all of these obstacles and many others. If you use it to keep track of your repertoire and practice sessions, it will intelligently suggest when, what, and how to practice. Decades of research tells us that techniques like interleaved practice, spaced repetition, and deliberate practice can improve our learning and memory, yet often we do the exact opposite, to the detriment of our music. We’ve taken this research and used it to design a tool to help amateur and professional musicians alike improve the quality of their practice and bring better music to the world. For more information, see our website at www.pianopracticeassistant.com.
Piano Practice Assistant works by keeping a log of what you've practiced, when, and how well you played it, from the big-picture level all the way down to the level of the short phrases and passages that make up a piece. It allows you to build better practice habits by randomizing the order in which you practice those passages or by focusing mainly on passages you found difficult or haven't played in a while.
The app also comes with a helpful example piece divided into sections and subsections (Mozart Piano Sonata No. 14 in C minor, K. 457), as well as tips for practicing with Piano Practice Assistant.
Metronome included.
It can take time to see a change to your practice routine pay off, so we honor requests for full refunds within 30 days of purchase if you are not satisfied.

Information

  • Category:
    Music & Audio
  • Latest Version:
    1.17
  • Updated:
    2017-06-03
  • File size:
    1.0MB
  • Requirements:
    Android 2.2 or later
  • Developer:
    Coherence Academy
  • ID:
    com.pianopracticeassistant.ppa
Reviews
  • avatar
    I really like the premise behind this app, however it is missing some key features: 1. No 'log' of what you have practiced when, and how you are improving over time. 2. No pause, or back buttons for when you are practicing. As per another review, it pops up with a message saying it may not work with the latest android os, so maybe these features were in the original.
    2021-05-16 07:48
  • avatar
    Number of stars is random -- haven't had a chance to explore the app yet -- but I was disappointed to download and find an announcement that I should upgrade only to realize the app hasn't been updated in three years :-/ Still excited to try it out, but hoping there will be support for newer is versions...
    2020-09-24 12:57
  • avatar
    I find myself using this app more and more for my practice and I really do love it. It helps me keep a good rotation of the pieces I am working on without over- or under-working any given piece or section and helps me really focus. Some quirks of the interface could use a little improvement, but it doesn't detract from the usefulness of the app.
    2018-11-26 11:21
  • avatar
    I use this for guitar music, not for piano music. I really don't know why the App is called "piano practice" because it seems to me it works for any band instrument equally well. I'm a member of a swing jazz band, and a rock band, so keeping proficient on songs, as well as practicing more efficiently is very important to me. The App does seem to do what it claims and suggests songs to play that perhaps I haven't played in a while. I haven't used it long enough to know if it's simply choosing the songs I picked to practice or not, but I presume it is more intelligent in making choices then simply the songs I chose up front. I like that I have a list of all the songs that I know on hand. I like that I can use it for other practice activities by creating a "song": "practice major scale", for example. I don't like that the song list doesn't sort. I have over 100 songs entered, so finding a song can be quite tedious. Songs go in as entered with the latest entered on the top. I don't like that there is no way to select-all, or unselect-all songs to practice. It is very tedious to select/unselect every song individually.
    2016-10-06 01:08
  • avatar
    Great concept. Entry of data could be better. A way of changing suggested practice times for a group of sections all at once would save a lot of time. Also annoying is the fact that using your phone for anything else exits the app rather than pausing or continuing. Very irritating as going back into the app causea it to move on to another piece. Still, incredibly useful.
    2016-01-15 09:12
  • avatar
    The perfect antidote to aimless noodling. If you're anything like me then your repertoire is full of pieces that you used to know, or that you know the first few measures. This app will help you attend to the most important things in your practice schedule. Suitable for all instruments. Absolutely Brilliant.
    2015-10-26 09:31