flowkey – Learn Piano Reviews

by Meepow

I have been searching everywhere for an app or book that can teach me to play piano but I was not successfully. flowkey sounded like a good idea... I learned to play a simple song: ode to joy. When flowkey let me roam free around to pick another song, I soon figured out that as I had no subscription, I could only play 8 songs! When I opened up a “beginner “ song... I was shocked... the song I found listed under beginner was extremely difficult. As I was attempting to learn it, flowkey suggested that I take a course on learning the piano. I found many lessons... it was EXACTLY what I had been searching for... but APPARENTLY it was too good to be true... I tapped on the first lesson of how to read sheet music. I felt fine and relieved to take the first lesson... but when I finished it, flowkey told me I needed a “premium” plan... I was fuming! As realization struck me, I found out that the long winding list of lesson types with even more lessons within them required (once again !) a “premium plan”

So to put it simply, the functionality of LEARNING how to actually USE the piano is not very possible on flowkey without a subscription of $20 a month!!!!!!!!!

by Zagmongor

The wait mode functionality on flowkey is quite frustrating. This is the mode in which the song waits until you hit the right key before moving on. Without MIDI functionality on your keyboard you are stuck with it trying to recognize sounds through your phone mic. There is no keyboard calibration setup or anything to let flowkey know what sound corresponds to what key on your keyboard. So if your piano is slightly out of tune or if you have a cheap electronic keyboard like myself, it has a hard time picking up certain notes. This severely disrupts my flow during a song when I have to repeat a key until it finally recognizes, or it randomly skips notes sometimes. As a beginner i find the sections that are hardest to learn are the ones were I have to repeat notes because it cannot properly recognize them.

Also if I search a song that I would like to play, i can’t add it to “my songs” to save it for later. It appears that you can only save songs to your list if you so happen to come across it going through the songs tab and clicking through categories and scrolling forever trying to find the song you want to save. Very inconvenient.

Much to be desired after paying $100 for flowkey....

by 凰萧

I’ve been playing piano for almost 20 years- I started when I was five. After I moved to my own apartment, I decided to buy a Yamaha digital piano with weighted keys to best mimic the true touch of a real piano. I noticed flowkey from Yamaha’s website and decided to give it a try. After tried playing several pieces, I think flowkey is really ideal for beginners who do not know anything about pedal, dynamics, and the flow of music. The only thing flowkey cares about is wether you played a note right or wrong. While playing the note correctly is an essential part for beginners, for more advanced players, there are certainty room for improvements. flowkey did help me correct some notes that I unintentionally played wrong, but I had to stop and correct the wrong note before I can move on. Imaging you’re playing some beautiful pieces in front of your friends, flowkey keep yelling at you for one note and will not show the rest of the sheets before you correct it. More ideally (at least for me) is that after I finish playing the whole piece, flowkey can tell me the locations of notes or chords I played wrong in this piece. But I think it is still a quite powerful tool for beginners who just want to press the key and play some music.

by Nina Christian

Personally I feel like I was miss-lead by the information that was available to me when I was searching for an app to learn to play piano! On one hand I love the interface, I love the fact that flow-key waits for you, and that it moves along as you play!
On the other hand, I am almost through all of the courses, and I barely know anymore than I knew prior to paying for flowkey, their customer service was wonderful before my payment actually was deposited, Following my free trial, I think the concept of this app is wonderful, but are we really learning how to play? I don’t think so, we’re just mimicking two hands we see above us, at least that’s how I feel! I could go on anon but those are my two biggest gripes. Plus they mentioned that there’s thousands of songs, and I can barely find time that I enjoy And maybe two that I can actually make my way through playing, so I’m disappointed, not totally disappointed, but enough that I would not renew my membership! Hope this helps someone who might want to learn to play, And is confused on which app to go with!

by Vitodrums247

This review is coming from a musician. I’ve played guitar and drums for years and always wanted to play piano. I took an intro course in college and haven’t played piano since.

flowkey is good for beginners. I started off having to skip plenty of the lessons because it’s stuff I already knew and didn’t realize.

If you’re playing on a real piano or a keyboard with less than 88 keys it could be a problem. flowkey requires you to be in the same octave and won’t move along unless you hit the correct notes. Even hitting the correct notes but a different octave won’t allow you to proceed. I have a 88 key Bluetooth enabled keyboard which makes flowkey much smoother.

My complaint are with the songs. Almost every song I picked out also incorporates the vocal melody. Now this is nice, but if I’m trying to learn “Let it Be” I want to play it like Paul McCartney and sing along. Not be forced to play the vocal melody making it nowhere near what he’s actually playing.

Maybe create a “master” mode or something where it’s the instrumental how the artist would play it and sing on top.

The subscription price for flowkey could get expensive. But I looked at it like 20 a month and I get all the piano lessons my time allows. That’s worth it for me and definitely got the rust off my hands. I’ll continue to learn the beginnings of songs on pro before the vocal melody kicks in and improvise the rest.

by Hill B.W.

I give flowkey a tentative 4 stars. I tried this app and another piano app together for the 7 day trial and found that, overall, this app worked better for me. I played an instrument in grade school and had unsuccessful private piano lessons as a kid and was definitely in need of a refresher on reading music. I think flowkey does a nice job introducing the elements of reading music (though I do sort of wish there was a written element where a note would appear and you had to name it by letter, like a written pop quiz) It also allows you to practice a piece as needed before moving on. Another small gripe is how many times you have to push play or OK to start the activity. I wish this could be a voice command so that you can get your hands situated and then say “OK” to start the exercise. My tentative 4 stars is based on the fact that shortly after starting to play more than one note at a time, flowkey has a hard time determining if you are playing the correct note. This make practicing extremely frustrating having to play the same note many, many times until it hears it correctly to move on, ruining any flow you had going and making it hard to actually learn a piece of music. I have a cable coming so that I can plug my iPad into my keyboard and hope this improves the experience. If this works, it will solidify my 4 stars.

by Mouse642

Ok, I never write reviews... like ever, but flowkey deserves it. I am completely new to piano, never have taken a lesson in my life and while I have been trying, I couldn’t play with two hands to save my life, that is until I found flowkey. Even though I have only played through a little bit of the beginner songs, I CAN FINALLY PLAY WITH TWO HANDS!!!!! I have tried everything, besides a teacher because I like to learn by myself, and flowkey is the only thing so far that has helped me to play simultaneously with two hands, and actually play the piano well. It allows you to go at your own pace and slow songs down, and while it’s a little pricy, heck, I might even buy a subscription. So to all my newbies who also have no idea how to play and are loosing hope, flowkey helped me, and although you can only access a few songs before buying a subscription, I recommend it for the short time you can use it before it blocks off.

by Sophiebeanzee

I like the fact that you can learn at your own pace and that unlike with music lessons you have to practice a certain amount of time everyday and I didn’t like that idea so learning at your own pace works for me. The only problem is the note detection from playing on the piano and the iPad hearing it from the mic. It seems to glitch every once in a while when i play two notes at a time i have to play them a couple of times in a row to get it to hear me playing. And at one point today when I was playing I played two notes and then the screen didn’t move on to the next section and I tried closing out flowkey and it was still happening. And I know it isn’t my iPad that is the problem because I just got this back in December and it is the bran new 2019 version.

by CPatt_1105

I’ve had flowkey for a year now. It has plenty to keep me engaged. I started with a basic knowledge of treble clef and reading music from playing sax. A few things I wish flowkey had: 1. It makes you take your hands off the keyboard to touch the iPad to advance to the next lesson or part to be learned. That is a pain. They should just make you push a piano key to move on. 2. Needs a way to highlight measures you have trouble with and a way to write in accidentals or notes to yourself (like you could do if using paper music). 3. I would like to see a song that I have learned just static, like a piece of sheet music. Instead it always has the music measures scrolling like a video game and I don’t think that function can be turned off. So is it worth the $? Yeah, I guess so. It is fun. It’s at least a ton cheaper than private lessons however for someone not very gifted like myself I think I’d still need real piano lessons to actually be able to play piano.

by AWal Visuals

Overall I like this app a lot more than other apps like Simply Piano. It has a better interface and better lessons in my opinion. I also love the fact that it has a MIDI interface since the keyboard I currently own is a MIDI only controller. The only problem with this is that flowkey doesn’t play back any audio of the notes I’m playing. I assume this is because most people using flowkey would be playing a normal keyboard or piano. But since my keyboard is just a controller, it doesn’t have any speakers on it so I can only hear the audio through whatever device I’m connected to. The options menu on flowkey is pretty limited, and as far as I can tell, there’s no way to change this. I realize that I’m probably in a minority situation, but since there doesn’t seem to be a work around for this yet, I’m stuck using Simply Piano if I want to hear what I’m playing. But since I still prefer everything else about flowkey, I’m hoping that this option will be added.

by Lurkling

It would be great if you would add an ability to skip listening to the demo. If I want to practice skills, I don’t need to necessarily listen to it twice every time. I would like the option to skip as needed. This would be very helpful for making this part of my daily practice.

Also I’m coming back to it after a while. And when I was using it to study the songs, I had one slight frustration that made me not use it as often. And that was just that if I wanted to hammer out a certain section that I personally had trouble with… There was no way to do that. It would be nice if you could work on a piece, and narrow in on just a section you wanted to work on. And not the sections they choose. And that you could do it as slow or as fast as you wanted until you got it. And not have to listen to them play it (you would see if you were correct, because of the read notes or of moving forward)

by Godchagk

I took lessons for years when I was a kid, never very good, but I still like to dabble on my own. flowkey helps me A LOT for this first couple hours learning a piece. It's much faster than me working on my own. However, after a certain point flowkey is no longer helpful. That's when i start needing the sheet music to work at my own speed and drill problem areas. flowkey just isn't good for that and I can't memorize pieces like flowkey is apparently expecting you to. Overall it serves a purpose up to a point but then you really need the sheet music. some songs arranged by their "partners" do have sheet music available on the partner's website. for the other songs I've resorted to taking screenshots of measures then piecing them together on my computer. not ideal but it works. the classical music obviously has sheet music you can find on other sources. for that reason i upgraded it to four stars. minus a star for expense.

by Miles-co

Love this freaking app! I’m kind of addicted to it. We got a Yamaha piano p-45 for Christmas for our family, and it came with three free months of this app. I’ve been doing courses and songs every day. What a great combo. I quit piano lessons after a year in fifth grade. Never made it to two hands, and this app had me playing with two hands in a few days. Thanks!

Only feature I’d like is to have an option to see the entire song on the screen, and even print a pdf if copyrights allow. Sometimes it’s hard to remember which parts are coming up, and printout would solidify the song. But I do love the scrolling as a great learning method. Also buy a MIDI chord to recognize the notes spot on. The mic did good enough, but with the direct link I can play with headphones or a lot of noisy kids in the background and not miss a note.

by Nickname4567574765

I LOVE flowkey. They have the best pop songs (very important to me) and they keep flowkey updated regularly. I tried many piano learning apps but this one was the best. The UI is great. I like being able to loop any section I want, scroll back and fourth, and use a midi keyboard if I want. I keep buying the yearly subscription and it is totally worth it. One improvement I would love to see is an option to remove or add the hands from/to the view (while learning a song) if you would like. I actually put a piece of paper over the hands part of the screen when I’m trying to learn how to read the sheet music, because my brain wants me to just peek at the hands because they’re easier to read. This option would help us learn how to read sheet music. Then we could add the hands back to the view whenever they were desired.

by Bold.dreamer

(...and now feel free to go ahead and share some $$ to good hardworking people who made this beauty. They deserve it and I’m sure you gonna love it! 😉)

Last year, for the reasons which I still don’t exactly know, I suddenly decided that I want to learn to play piano. Somehow I kidda figured that ”nothing difficult here and I don’t need a teacher”, so I went researching web.
Few months later “the theory basics” were mostly covered, but next then next logically following question came up “Well, that’s all great, now I know it and what do I suppose to do with all of that now??”
So the point I’m trying to make here is: If I wouldn’t accidentally found flowkey I’d probably still be “mastering to play scales” or just simply gave up on all of this “piano nonsense” and would have missed the whole FUN I’m having now.

by Skiffs Jdjjsjd

i never leave reviews so i really mean this. i’m 23 and grew up playing piano and adoring it with a burning passion but had overall negative experiences in lessons because i played by ear and had a difficult time comprehending written music. i never progressed beyond a level 3 or whatever until i was 20-21, although i never went longer than a week without working in an hour at the piano even in the hardest times.

the format of flowkey is EXACTLY what i needed to bridge the gap between my written music comprehension issues and my natural ear. the music selection is legit, and the instructional videos are ASMR if nothing else. it’s a little steep, but if you’re wanting to really throw yourself into learning piano and you’ve been at a standstill and are willing to throw some cash at it, i would absolutely recommend flowkey.

by Poemsnpaintings

I am an older adult (73 years old) and new to piano. I tried working with 2 different piano teachers. One taught me like one of her 6 year old learners, though I know she meant well. The other seemed like she was out to prove something and had no patience for mistakes. So I decided to try this app and learn on my own. It was the best decision I could have made. I went ahead and bought the lifetime membership and I am glad I did. I am now learning and playing music. There are tons of selections for every level, plus there are courses for learning scales, chords, and more. I wish there were more courses. If I could change something, it would be to have the ability to download an entire piece so that I could print it out and play it when I don’t have an internet connection. This would also allow me to look at the whole piece, and give me a better context for what I am learning. As it is right now you can only see a few measures at a time as the piece scrolls by. Still, I highly recommend flowkey.

by Named Name 139

Edit, I realize that I wrote this when I was near drunk-levels of sleep-deprived, but I still think that it’s criminal that the Celeste soundtrack isn’t available. It already has a full piano album and translates so well to piano!

Alright, this service works well and taught my sister how to play the piano. My only gripe is pretty niche, and it’s that the game music section is a bit sparse. It was the Celeste game soundtrack by Lena Raine that got me to love piano music. The soundtrack has a piano album and would make a wonderful addition to this app’s library. Some of them would make great songs for beginners, but would be enjoyable to learn for anyone. Personally, I find it difficult to keep working at learning a skill as a personal long term goal, and piano is no exception; however I know that these songs would keep mine and others’ interest. I reiterate, flowkey works wonderfully and already has a large library of songs, but I personally have a harder time due to music preference.

by Fourteener29

I bought a Yamaha CSP-170 one year ago. Started using flow key with free into offer. I have upgraded to premium last year after free intro and agin for another year. While flowkey is pretty expensive I have been using it every day. It does work very well with my piano and my playing has really improved over the past year. Now with virus stay at home, I will be using it even more. I suggest trying it and seeing how you like it then if you do upgrade to premium.

Sometime I just like to play songs on my iPad and watch how they are played. It had enabled mr to play harder songs that I could have without flowkey . I love love the live wait mode aspect. I noticed some one else not liking it. It works very well on my Yamaha CSP-170 plugged in thru USB port. I my Yamaha per-125 on a camping trip in my motor home. That didn’t work as well because it is too old to plug in thru usb. Have to use microphone function to “hear” the mores I played. It will miss hear some notes and slow down my playing but plugged it works very well.

by SterlingSky

I am an experienced pianist, so cannot comment on the teaching tools, but I am disappointed with the sheet music, as in there is none. My complaints:

1. You must play from the line that only shows a few bars at a time.
2. You cannot slow the speed of the flow - at least not that I can figure out. I’m a good sight reader, but It would be nice to be able to do that when first learning a new song.
3. You only see the key you are in at the start of the flow. I would like be able to glance at a key signature from time to time, especially in songs where it changes throughout.
4. I would like the option of downloading the sheet music so that I done have to deal with the flow line only. I would be fine with a small fee to download a digital file.
5. There seems to be a glitch in connecting to Bluetooth. My Roland has a blue tooth connection - this is the first time I’ve had trouble connecting.
6. It does not seem there are 1000+ songs. Where are they hiding?

What I like — the partners arrangements and being able to hear and see their scores - albeit a few bars at a time. I will need to go to them to purchase the digital files and hopefully they are available from them.

If you want to try it - pay for one month only to see if this is something for you. I paid for 3 months and unless I see some other benefits, that will be all I am in for.

by Kentahallis

I purchased a 1 month membership for this app, and at this point I don’t feel it was worth it due to the poor note recognition/clumsy software. I get false reads/misreads fairly regularly, so whether it be I’m jamming the correct key until it hears me and I can proceed with the song, or it proceeds through a part I’m playing incorrectly (or not at all), it’s always frustrating and I don’t feel like I’m getting much out of it. This is particularly prevalent in two-handed learning. I know it’s a software issue because Yousician, which does virtually the same thing, proceeds almost flawlessly every time under identical circumstances. This is probably because it has an actual calibration menu, unlike this app—maybe this app expects you to be playing on an actual piano, whereas I’m on a smaller electric keyboard. It’s too bad, as this app does feel like the more formally instructive option, but I must say I’m disappointed.

by Gildae

I love flowkey, I really do. It’s easy to follow, I love the courses section and I am able to learn how to play different music rather quickly than if I was left to figure it out on my own. Seeing and hearing how the song is played definitely helps me a lot when I am trying to learn a piece of music. I am enjoying learning how to play old school classical music. My one complaint, which for me is rather huge, is that their library of available music isn’t big enough to be inclusive of different types of music people want to learn. For example I want to learn how to play The Old Rugged Cross, Hold Me Now by Red, Burn The Ships by for King and Country, and old school Christmas music including the hymnals because you can only play White Christmas so many times before you want to rip out your own hair. I will gladly give flowkey five stars when there is a rich selection of Contemporary Christian music, classical hymns, and hymnal Christmas music to choose from.

by Dmdshelly

I have a love/hate relationship with flowkey. I love the interface. I hate, seriously hate, the music selection. For the beginner and intermediate levels, you are only given snippets of songs. Only the advanced and pro levels are given the full songs. I even emailed them about this and they gave me a ridiculous answer about how playing snippets of easy songs will enable you to play the full advanced version. Right. Further, there are beginner and intermediate snippets that have no advanced version. I really feel like this is bait and switch. Look at our great music selection - btw, you only get a few lines. Ranting aside, I do love the interface and keep coming back to it. I just have to ignore all the beginning and intermediate versions. Which works for me, but totally stinks for beginner and intermediate students.

by ToeSnatcher

Overall I like this app a lot more than other apps like Simply Piano. It has a better interface and better lessons in my opinion. I also love the fact that it has a MIDI interface since the keyboard I currently own is a MIDI only controller. The only problem with this is that flowkey doesn’t play back any audio of the notes I’m playing. I assume this is because most people using flowkey would be playing a normal keyboard or piano. But since my keyboard is just a controller, it doesn’t have any speakers on it so I can only hear the audio through whatever device I’m connected to. The options menu on flowkey is pretty limited, and as far as I can tell, there’s no way to change this. I realize that I’m probably in a minority situation, but since there doesn’t seem to be a work around for this yet, I’m stuck using Simply Piano if I want to hear what I’m playing. But since I still prefer everything else about flowkey, I’m hoping that this option will be added.

by Aidanster

I have playing piano off and on for over 30 years and this app is the best and most inspiring teacher I've ever had. I've learned more new songs in the last 6 months than in all those other years. Exceptional piano playing meets intelligent app design. The song selection and piano styles have me playing and learning in ways I would never have with a single teacher. The ability to slow down and repeat any amount of a song is invaluable. As is learning the proper fingering with an unobstructed view of the pianist hands. It can also be a great tool for site reading. I can't say enough about the absolutely beautiful piano playing on flowkey. Pure unadulterated piano that can simply be listened to and enjoyed as some of the best piano renderings you can find. Bravo to the this app pianist..

by BenPhaaam

flowkey is excellent for practicing music. It allows you to loop a section and the microphone pics up sound very well.

There are times when it is a little buggy, but regardless I’ve seen a huge improvement in my playing. If you can sit down and play, it’s like having somewhere there to help you practice.

There are some features that I wish were available, like the ability to toggle on and off which notes are supposed to be play next so that you can practice reading the notes yourself. I also wish there was the ability to add markers and save your progress. These are minor things though and overall I’m very happy with the way flowkey works.

by Smm-37

Update
I purchased 3 more months. It's holiday time and I can actually play many of the intermediate level songs. I am so pleased with my progress. this app just added even more holiday music. I am so thrilled by the choices of songs and levels. flowkey is great for practicing piano. I play at least 5 times a week.
Original review
I purchased flowkey for 3 months. I am 60 and never played piano. I am now at intermediate level and can play many pieces with both hands. The lessons are well planned and effective. The choice of music is very good with popular songs, classics, and classical. There are also many holiday songs to play.
I enjoy practicing everyday by playing various songs I have identified as favorites. These songs are saved so I can find them easily.
this app allows for choosing the speed to play the song or using flow mode, a mode that waits for the correct note. I like learning songs in that mode. It allows me to develop proficiency before attempting to play in time.
I would recommend flowkey to adults who would like to learn piano. It would be fine for young kids with support from a knowledgeable adult.

by Beareect

I have been a user of the this app app for the past four months and am very impressed. I am using flowkey for teaching myself how to play the piano and the integrated approach of listening, viewing and then playing is fantastic. flowkey shows me the proper fingering of the notes, along with the sheet music. this app‘s ability to “hear” my playing is very cool.

With respect to the Customer Service Team, they are incredibly quick in replying and extremely thorough. I had an issue with flowkey on two different iPads and reached out to them for a solution. They were very responsive and I give them the highest marks of excellence.

Bravo this app!