How Piano Teachers Can Integrate Tablets in Their Lessons

Tablets are getting quite popular among piano teachers. With all the apps available and tools on the devices, the student can get more from their lessons and from the teacher. Here are some great ways that piano teachers can integrate their tablets into their lessons.

Download Apps

There are hundreds upon hundreds of apps in the app store that revolve around piano and teaching. All of these can be easily added to lessons and used to enhance your teaching. Some great apps to download include:

Pianomaestro: This app helps piano students learn sight-reading, rhythm, beat and enthusiasm for harder pieces. It is great to encourage your students to download as well as download yourself to give another platform for students to learn on.

Decide Now!: This app may just be a spinning wheel, but it is great for teachers to use! Quickly turn anything into a game with the wheel. Simply input the options and spin. You can spin the wheel when testing scales or chords instead of just saying them and choose songs based on the wheel. There are so many possibilities.

Practice+: This is a metronome app. You can change things such as the time signature, beat divisions, tempo, as well as other things. The visual aspect of this app is great for students to be able to see the ticks as they play if they can’t “hear” the ticks.

YouTube: YouTube offers a lot of options in terms of video. You can make a playlist of different performances and compare and contrast others. It can also be fun to record and upload YouTube videos of students playing if they so desire.

Forscore: This app allows you to do a lot. You can store all your sheet music, make playlists, bookmark and annotate scores.

Flashnote Derby: This app is simple and fun for students. Notes are shown on the screen and the students have to identify them to win the race. You can customize it with what notes you want to drill your students in and mix it up every time.

Stay Organized

The tablet is exceptional at helping people stay organized. You can organize your schedule and who you are teaching what day, as well as personal schedules as well. It is also a good place to keep contact information for all your students, birthdays, take notes for each student, record and edit student videos, create worksheets and save lessons!

Home Challenges

Most people these days have some sort of electronic device at home. Have your students download certain apps that they can use at home to practice. Giving them a little change of pace from playing on a classic piano while still allowing them to learn proper skills. They can practice daily with flashcards, rhythm, note-reading and theory.

Digital Sheet Music

This skill is becoming important as technology increases and improves with time. The digital music world is growing and expanding; with this, binders of music is slowly going out of style as performers choose to keep their music on digital music readers.

Playing from a screen takes practice though, so using some lesson time to help your students learn this is important. You don’t have to completely forgo classic music sheets, but make sure they know the skill for the future.

You can teach without a tablet, but they can certainly enhance the lessons and keep things fresh and different when students walk into the classrooms. Create a good balance of technology and teaching to impact each lesson.

If you’re interested in pursuing a career in animation, learn more about the programs within the College of Fine Arts and Production and check out our website or click the Request More Information button on this page.