Best Apps to Learn Music

By Lucy Rome | Updated on
Best Apps to Learn Music

Learning music has a wide range of benefits that can change your life. While it might be true that children have an easier time learning music, you are never too old to learn music.

The important tip for music learners is to identify what kind of music they like and choose their instrument for that type of music. The following music learning apps will provide you comprehensive insight into the music notation, rules of harmony, ear training, etc.

Here’s some of our best apps to learn music whether you're looking to simply learn music theory or sheet music or learn to play an instrument or create your own tunes.

tonestro: Violin Lesson - Tuner

Violin Lessons by tonestro provides students with a step-by step approach to learning the violin. The learner is assigned an experienced, online violin tutor who demonstrates all of the techniques in high quality tutorial videos.

With tonestro‘s great combination of video tutorials and interactive exercises, you’ll be able to play your favorite instrument in no time.

Price: Free with in-app purchases

Devices: iOS, Android, Web

Start your free trial now

Fret Zealot: Learn Real Guitar

Fret Zealot is an intuitive, innovative and fun way to learn to play guitar, bass and ukulele.

Fret Zealot features over 100 world-class courses covering 30+ genres, lessons, a vast song library, as well as a unique, optional state-of-the-art LED hardware component for your guitar that fits next to the frets and shows your colourised finger locations for 100% of the app content and videos.

Price: Free with in-app purchases

Devices: iOS, Android, Web

Download for iOS / Android

Guitar Notebook

Guitar Notebook is a guitar learning app that allows users to capture song ideas quickly with simple notation, audio recording, and lyrics. Guitar Notebook is available for free to download on iOS and Mac devices.

It can be used for songwriting, guitar practice, or documenting DAW guitar tracks. Everything is stored in one place within the app meaning that the user’s musical ideas are not lost or forgotten. tion of video tutorials and interactive exercises, you’ll be able to play your favorite instrument in no time.

Price: Free with in-app purchases

Devices: iOS

Download for iOS

smart Chords

Smart Chords app provides access to customisable chords and tab for millions of songs across a large range of string instruments e.g. guitar, banjo, bass, mandolin, ukulele. For each instrument chords and tab are available for predefined and custom tunings, from 3 to 8 strings, from the first to the last fret, with capo and for both left and right-handed musicians.

The app inludes 40 great tools for learning, composing and playing for students or professional musicians.

Price: Free with in-app purchases

Devices: iOS


Fender Play

Fender Play is a subscription based service for anyone wanting to learn guitar, bass, ukulele or a combination of these instruments.

The easy to follow instructor-led video lessons take the learner from absolute beginner, through to developing the skills required to be able to learn riffs, chords, read tabs, play scales and conquer their chosen guitar pieces across a range of genres.

Price: Free with in-app purchases

Devices: iOS, Android

Start your free trial now

Chordify - Chords For Any Song

Chordify provides the learner with the chord charts to play along to any desired song simply by searching within the app. You can switch between viewing chords for guitar/ukulele or piano.

Chordify is your #1 platform for chords for guitar, piano and ukulele. They give you the chords for 22 million songs and align them to the music in an easy to use player. Chordify helps musicians of all levels to learn to play the music they love.

Price: Free with in-app purchases

Devices: iOS, Android


Playground Sessions For Piano

Playground sessions is a motivational piano learning tool. Playground Sessions provides the learner with high quality, interactive lessons taught by world class musicians.

The app also listens to the player and provides real-time feedback unlocking rewards like free songs. The play along tracks can be adjusted using the mixer to adjust the levels of the backing.

Price: Free with in-app purchases

Devices: iOS, Android, Web

Start your free trial now

Learn Music Theory & Sheet Music

Music theory is comprehensive. It’s more than just learning how to read music or picking up instrumental skills. It’s more fundamental than topics like audio editing or sound engineering. It’s the exploration of all possibilities in music, and we still have so much left to explore.


Tonal Harmony Analysis

The application Tonal Harmony Analysis provides users with the opportunity to input a range of different chords, and identify the suitability of the chord progressions. It provides users with the analysis of each chord progression, offering a range of different options and choices. The app would analyse each option, and identify whether the options worked with different harmonic analysis rules.

Price: Free with in-app purchases

Devices: iOS, Android


ABRSM Theory Works

ABRSM Theory Works is a course of explanations and exercises to work your way through the theoretical understanding in preparation for music theory exams with ABRSM. It is aimed towards any student that is looking to improve their theoretical understanding, but particularly those who are completing the ABRSM exams, from Grades 1 to 5. The display is very simple to navigate and understand, and needs no further instruction. The use of the explanations are helpful, aided by diagrams where suitable, and further exercises to practise. This app is designed to give students some interactive enjoyment when improving their theoretical understanding, with instant feedback and recognition for accurate answers, without necessarily having a music theory teacher, or to aid alongside this.

Price: Free with in-app purchases

Devices: iOS, Android, Web

Read also: Best Music Theory Apps


Newzik: Sheet Music Reader

Newzik: Sheet Music Reader is an in-depth app that allows users to utilise the app by reading the scores, and following them digitally, without the need for printouts or multiple pages, at its most simplest form.

Newzik is designed to give you complete control of your digital scores. Upload, rehearse, perform, organize, improvise, and collaborate to your heart’s content. The app also allows you to record yourself and add in your own notes such as audio video, MIDI track and YouTube links, to develop your rehearsal skills and performance skills.

Price: Free with in-app purchases

Devices: iOS


Tomplay Sheet Music

Tomplay Sheet Music is an in-depth app that allows users to utilise the app by reading the scores, and following them without the requirement of any page turns, at its most simplest form.

Tomplay allows you a wide array of features, such as playing alongside the recording, utilising backing tracks, recording yourself, changing the tempo, and annotating the score, among other options.

Price: Free with in-app purchases

Devices: iOS, Android


Vocal Training

Aspiring singers can now become extremely proficient without expensive coaches or schools. And one of the best tools for self-improvement is the singing app.


VoxTrain

Transform Your Voice in 18 Weeks! The course VoxTrain is a vocal training class. It is aimed towards any student interested in understanding their voice and improving their singing from absolute beginnings, to developing the complexities and understanding the depth of singing through use of breathing, tone and control. The use of the videos is engaging and helpful, aided by diagrams where suitable, and further exercises to practice.

Voxtrain provides the student with an interactive way to improve their vocal skills using any of their devices. The app gives students the opportunity to practice vocal skills, and understand how to improve their singing.

Price: Free with in-app purchases

Devices: Web

Read also: Best Singing Apps


Learn Music Instruments

To play music instruments such as guitar, bass, banjo and ukulele, you need to understand the various chords and scales. Most of the professional musicians who have mastered the art of playing these instruments had to spend hours training.


flowkey

flowkey is much better at teaching its learners how to learn music, understanding how to read the theory and rhythm. It does this in a fun and enjoyable manner. You might want to go find your own favorite songs to learn yourself. You can quickly navigate to Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced & Pro level songs at the top of the screen. It is aimed towards any student wanting to develop their understanding and keyboard skills, and covers not only the skills to play the keyboard, but also the theory behind this, development of this as a musician, and a range of songs to work through. The layout is very simple and easy to navigate and the course is really interesting and versatile.

Price: Free with in-app purchases

Devices: iOS, Android, Web


Yousician

Yousician helps you to learn music instruments such as bass, guitar, piano or ukulele. Yousician is an interactive music instrument app that’s designed to really provide a fully-formed experience for just about everyone to better their instrument playing.

One of the features that make Yousician stand out is its exhaustive choice of learning options. Use Practice Mode to slow songs down. This will help you build the coordination you need to play songs up to speed. You can also learn songs in parts; then once you've mastered each part you can try the whole song. The app is designed to give the player a chance to improve through practice and competition.

Price: Free with in-app purchases

Devices: iOS, Android


Harmony City

Harmony City is an in-depth, fun and engaging app that allows users to learn how to play either the ukulele or guitar through a range of video tutorials, followed by games with songs.

Harmony City allows you to learn how to play your instrument, tune it with the microphone on your device, as well as accessing a wide range of songs that continue to be developed and added into the library.

Price: Free with in-app purchases

Devices: iOS, Android

Download for iOS Download for Android

So, these are the top music learning apps for Android and iOS that come with a structured program so you can begin on the right note, with the right chord, and of course with the right pitch.

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