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10 Best Music Apps for Kids to Play and Listen

Teaching your kids music and learning to play an instrument can have so many benefits for your child! Learning how to play music, how to sing and listen to music are all a natural part of life.

Music is about communication, self-expression and having fun! A rewarding experience that can help your child improve their ability to listen and focus, promote good self-esteem, self-expression and problem-solving skills, and, best of all, help your child grow as a person.

Nowadays, it is easier for children to learn music, because there are many apps and websites on the internet that offers music lessons and interactive learning games. Music learning games are particularly effective in helping children develop an interest in music, because they are entertaining as well as educational. Here is a list of apps that provide music learning games for children.

Mussila Music School

Musilla Musical School is an application suitable for children 6 to 11 years of age in which they learn the basics of music. This beautifully presented app explores the adventures of the Mussila band on a musical journey. Help them find instruments, costumes and create your own music. The app is based on a music curriculum and the player progresses through skill building levels such as recognising instruments, instrumental sounds, rhythm and melodies. This extensive game has over 60 levels of engaging game play and creativity.

Loopimal

( iPad - £2.99 )

Loopimal is a seriously fun app that allows kids (and adults alike) to explore sequences, loops, and music as they try to animate a bunch of cute animals. Children have endless opportunities to create rich compositions and explore loops and computer sequencing within an easy-to-use pre-programming framework.

Kids can learn about components of music such as beat, rhythm, melody, tempo, and so on. As they create patterns of up to eight musical blocks that repeat endlessly, kids experience visual and auditory loops and sequences. The animals' movements also help give a good sense of tempo and movement as it relates to music.

Baby Mozart - Children Music

( iPad - Free )

Baby Mozart Children’s Music is a unique application that is guaranteed to help improve your babies sleep and help develop their brain by listening to music. The application is full of content and includes high quality popular classical music tracks, lullaby’s, audio flashcards, nursery rhymes and much more. The app is free from in-app adverts although there are in-app purchases that relate to other musical packages that you can purchase such as Popular Kids songs, Children’s Classic songs, Christmas Classics and more.

Musical Me! HD - by Duck Duck Moose

( iPad - Free )

Musical Me! takes children on a magical, musical journey. Explore elements of music with familiar Duck Duck Moose Characters and superbly arranged children's songs. Enjoy little surprises throughout this app as your child learns about rhythm, instruments, pitch, and musical notes. Sit down as a family to dance, laugh and create music with Musical Me!

Kids can learn some of the basics of music, including rhythm, notes, and instruments as they play along to familiar tunes like "Mary Had a Little Lamb," "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," and "Pop Goes the Weasel." Music engages many parts of the brain, and through playing with rhythm, memory, and notes, kids can develop critical thinking skills and sharpen memorization skills. Musical Me by Duck Duck Moose is an engaging app that offers kids a variety of ways to make and experience music while boosting their critical-thinking skills.

Rockford's Rock Opera 1 – Children's Musical Audiobook

Rockford's Rock Opera is a thought provoking and heart warming story that not only provides wonderful, musical entertainment for all ages, but also highlights environmental issues in an engaging way. The app uses stunning graphics, animation and music to teach students about extinction, ecology and biodiversity. Join Rockford the dog and his owner Moog on their travels as they discover new animals and places in this truly magical adventure.

Music Sparkles – Musical Instruments Collection

( iPad - Free )

Music Sparkles sparks creativity and love of music with its interactive instruments and multi-touch play. The free version of Music Sparkles has users playing 4 octaves of a xylophone and banging away on the drums with accompaniment from 5 other instruments. Use one, two or five fingers to play chords and have a blast adding a rhythm line while the banjo plays a simple tune along with you. Be careful of in-app purchases when locked screens are tapped.

Kids can learn many musical concepts including instrument identification and design as well as performing with a number of different instrument types (strings, keyboards, woodwind, and percussion). Kids can also learn listening skills such as playing in key and in rhythm, and music theory like scales, intervals, and singing solfege syllables (Do-Re-Mi). The instruments are polyphonic, so kids can play more than one note at a time and in different octaves, and the keyboards are in 12-note chromatic scales. Though it lacks recording and playback, Music Sparkles is still a fantastically rich and interactive musical experience for little ones.

Sesame Street Makes Music

( iPad - £2.99 )

Sesame Street Makes Music has serious music-making lessons to learn, from different instruments to how tempo affects songs. Ernie, Abby, Elmo and Cookie Monster are all there to help, with eight instruments to explore.

Kids can learn about music structure, style, and instruments. They'll hear familiar songs played in new ways and get introduced to six musical genres. By experimenting with turning band members on and off, kids can learn about how each member contributes to the overall sound of a song. Kids can also learn the names of six instruments and explore the unique sounds they make. Sesame Street Makes Music's inherent content is limited, but parents can use it as a springboard for lots of musical discussion and exploration.

Piano Maestro by JoyTunes - Piano practice

( iPad - Free )

Piano Maestro by JoyTunes is an engaging practice tool and effective bridge among the teacher, parent, and kid.

Piano Maestro by JoyTunes is an interactive piano practice app for kids. As kids play on an electric or acoustic piano or on the in-app keyboard, the app uses the iPad's touchscreen or microphone to gauge the player's accuracy and gives instant visual and auditory feedback. These days, there are so many piano apps available to help you or your kids learn how to play the piano.

Kids can learn and hone beginning piano skills as they practice simple songs and hone their sight-reading skills. They can practice techniques as they play with each hand and then both hands together, and they can ramp up to more intermediate skills such as chords and arpeggios. Kids can also learn consistent practice habits as they earn stars and level up based on their performance.

BabyFirst: Bedtime Lullabies

( iPad - Free )

BabyFirst Sleepy Time app for kids is one of the best baby music app that brings all of your favorite naptime or bedtime music for you and your kids to get ready for sleep. From soothing music for babies, to classic lullabies, nap time and bed time won't be the same as before. The app has carefully crafted music and songs to appeal to babies and toddlers. With beautiful animations and videos to accompany the audio in each story, your little ones will love falling asleep to our lullabies.

KidloLand - Nursery Rhymes

( iPad - Free )

The app has a wide-ranging selection of interactive nursery rhymes and songs.

The kids songs covers various topics such as nursery rhymes, the alphabet, animals, vehicles, food, times of the year and animals. It has thousands of interactive surprises with funny animations and sounds. The app allows you to download songs and use the app offline in road trips, flights, doctor waiting rooms or to keep your kids engaged at home.

There are few other apps from developers that have been finding inventive ways for children to explore creative music-making or the world of music more generally on tablets and smartphones.