Playground Sessions For Piano

What we love about Playground Sessions

Playground sessions is a motivational piano learning tool. Playground Sessions provides the learner with high quality, interactive lessons taught by world class musicians. The Bootcamp and Courses sections provides the musician with a staged approach to playing the piano with good technique and accuracy. The integrated song library, organised by difficulty level allows the user to be able to play songs from the very first lesson, providing them with a clear benchmark of success as they progress.

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. The metronome and piano in each song can be broken down into sections and right or left hand separate practice can also be selected.

What skills does it improve?

Playground Sessions develops the players ability to read and play pieces from musical notation. The user plays along, in time with tailored backing tracks for their chosen songs. It develops not only the aural learning and ability to read and play from musical notation but also contains clear tutorials on the fundamentals of piano technique e.g. hand positioning, scales. All courses are broken down step by step including clear visual introductions to all new concepts along with reminders of important previously learned principles. 

For the intermediate/advanced player there are advanced courses alongside more complex pieces such as A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton and Brahms Hungarian Dance No.5 broken down into sections for ease of learning. For advanced players with previous piano experience there is the option to skip along to much harder courses teaching iconic riffs and songs. There are three main levels of difficulty within the app – Rookie, Intermediate and Advanced.

What age is it appropriate for?

The app is most suitable for secondary school children/college and university students as well as adult learners across the full range of abilities from beginner to those becoming more advanced in their playing. It is designed for those who are looking to teach themselves the piano and complements a daily/weekly practice schedule providing motivation and recognition of progress. 

Is Playground Sessions easy to use?

The activities and exercises in Playground Sessions are easy to understand and use. The menu is very straightforward to use for a practice session and has a user friendly design with quick access to the courses, bootcamp training section and song library. The dashboard shows recently played tracks and overall progress. The song library is easy to filter and you have the option to play each of your chosen songs at your current skill level.

How will students benefit?

The Playground Sessions app provides students with clear, interactive lessons utilising world class teachers and musicians that focus on specific aspects of playing. This could support work completed with a tutor and provide a recap of techniques learned or allow the student to learn new skills and move forward in their own practice without having to wait for the next lesson. The wide range of songs in the song library also allows the learner to practice reading notation, develop their physical playing ability and technical knowledge learned in the lessons in the context of different pieces. The real-time feedback means that students can see their progress and make adjustments to their technique as necessary. 

How will teachers benefit?

Playground Sessions helps inspire home practice by collecting statistics on practice time and levels completed. The high quality, interactive lessons in which students can revise techniques learned previously will be useful for when the teacher is not present. Teachers can also use Playground sessions in lessons to test students ability to play along in time with the actual piece. From a lesson planning perspective the staged process of Playground Sessions can help teachers chunk the learning with clear, effective explanations.

How will parents benefit?

The Playground Sessions app is free to try out and is a useful way of supporting home practice, ensuring that rehearsals recap prior learning and expand the user's playing through the range of songs in the library. It allows parents to hear how the child's piano part fits with the backing track, enabling students to practice their performance fully and hear their playing in the context of the whole song. For parents who have limited piano knowledge the apps ability to provide instant feedback is a benefit.

We think Playground Sessions could improve on:

The big benefit of Playground sessions is the real time feedback it provides. However, currently you are required to have a USB or midi keyboard plugged into your device for this to work. To improve, it would be useful if the devices microphone could be utilised so that acoustic pianos could be heard by the app. It would also be useful if you could record playing in the app in order to listen back and then share this with others/teachers.

How much does Playground Sessions cost?

Simply Playground Sessions offers a 14-day free trial.  Following this the app costs $24.99 per month which is inclusive of all content and the full song library, the price is discounted for annual sign up ($99.99) or lifetime signup ($259.99)

Is Playground Sessions safe to use?

Yes. The application does require an account and email to start with but no other personal data is required. The app's data protection compliance is explained on the website. 

Overall rating of the app:

I would highly recommend this app to anyone wanting to learn piano and read musical notation either independently or alongside a tutor. It is perfect for students that are new to learning the piano or for those who would like to further develop their piano skills. It is an app that is supportive to the weekly practice process and will allow the user to see clearly and immediately when they are correctly completing the exercises, motivating them to practice and make the improvements they need to make.

The access that Playground Sessions gives the learner to hundreds of video lessons from world-class teachers is a unique opportunity for learners to be inspired each and every time they play.