How to use StudyPiano

Ten minutes to learn the whole app. Everything happens on the iPad; you do not need an account or a network.

1. Before you start

• Turn the iPad to landscape and put it on the music stand or the piano, where it can hear the strings or speakers clearly. A quiet room helps.
• The first time you tap Start, allow the microphone. StudyPiano uses it only while a take is running, and the sound is processed on the iPad.
• Not sure the iPad hears your piano well enough? Open Settings › Check the microphone: four short steps tell you.

2. Today and your pieces

Today shows the pieces in your plan. Tap one to open its score. The sidebar lists every piece (Repertoire) and the Technique book. Nothing needs to be set up: the pieces come with the app.

3. The score page

• Choose bars: tap a bar on the score, or tap the bars button at the top, to choose where to work. The chosen bars turn blue.
• Hands: practise both hands, the left hand or the right hand.
• Hear: plays the chosen bars (or the whole piece) so you know how it should sound. Listen opens the sound settings: speed and the balance between the hands.
• Metronome and Pencil: a metronome with its own count-in and click sounds, and Apple Pencil to write on the score.
• Hard places and Theory (bottom): the bars worth practising first and why each is hard, and short notes about the chords and the shape of the piece, bar by bar. Tap a note to hear its bars.

4. Four ways to practise

By phrase (one phrase, one hand at a time)

Start By phrase and the rail at the bottom follows you phrase by phrase. It begins with a hand, then the other, then both. Play the phrase; the marks on the score show what went wrong; Hear plays it the right way and Compare plays your try and then the right one. A phrase becomes steady after a few clean tries in a row, and the rail moves on.

Play through

Play from the beginning. You see the marks as you play. Stop whenever you like.

Final run

Play the whole piece once without stopping. Nothing is marked while you play; the marks and the numbers come at the end.

Memory (a phrase from memory)

Tap the Memory button, choose left hand, right hand or both, and tap Start memory. The staff of that phrase is covered, so you play it without the notes. A timer runs; tap End recitation when you are done. Then the staff comes back with what was right and what was wrong, and how long it took. A phrase you play right from memory gets a small tick.

5. The results

After a Play through or Final run you see the whole take on the score.

• red a wrong or extra note · grey a note that was not heard · orange early or late
• Listen back plays your own recording of the chosen bars. Practise first spot takes you straight to the first problem. Back to the score returns to the page.
• The marks come from the iPad listening, so they can be wrong, especially for very soft notes or in a noisy room. If a mark is wrong, trust your ear and your teacher.

6. The Technique book

Open Technique in the sidebar for the Level 7 book: scales in two octaves, chords and arpeggios, one small section each. Play to play from the score. Turn Memory on and the notes disappear; play it from memory and the iPad checks it. Memory test picks five or ten sections at random, shows only their names, and tells you at the end which you had right.

7. Settings

• Metronome sound, the default balance between the hands, the count-in, and how many clean tries make a place steady.
• Recordings: StudyPiano keeps your last takes so you can listen back, and removes the oldest by itself. Delete all recordings removes every recording at once; your marks and numbers stay.
• Privacy and credits are at the bottom.

If something does not work

• It does not hear me: Settings › Privacy & Security › Microphone on the iPad must allow StudyPiano. Then run Settings › Check the microphone inside the app.
• It marks notes I played right: move the iPad closer, play a little louder, or lower the metronome volume. Very quiet left-hand notes are the hardest for it.
• Something else: write to piano@6ray.com and tell us what you did and what you saw.