The piano is one of the most popular instruments and when it comes to music production all the chords and melodies are created using a piano roll. However, not everyone has the luxury of being classical trained or, at the very least, receiving piano lessons as a kid. There is a ton of resources available to learn online, but a lot of those resources aren’t nearly as effective as a piano tutor. Skoove is a new online tool that teaches budding musicians how to play the piano in an interactive, non-traditional way.
From Skoove to Mozart
The piano is arguably one of the hardest instruments to learn because of the dynamics that come with playing the instrument. Both hands are playing at the same time, there are pedals incorporated into the mix, and the sheet music for a pianist can be extremely daunting. That is why co-founders Stephan Schulz and Dr. Florian Plenge wanted to design an application that simplified all the complexities and learning curves into easy bite size lessons that make learning the piano as painless as possible. Dr. Florian Plenge worked with Native Instruments for ten years and he has plans to grow Skoove to help budding musicians all over the world.
“We have designed Skoove to combine the best elements of a live tutor – giving real-time feedback and adapting to the student – with all the convenience of the web, being available anywhere 24/7, and at a fraction of the price.”
What makes Skoove different from learning online via tutorials is that the application actually connects to a MIDI keyboard and reads the way the notes are played to give honest feedback. So, if a user has trouble with chord changes or keeping the rhythm of the track Skoove will make a note of that to find ways for the user to fix the issue. When it comes to learning music theory and note reading, the app offers games that make it easy to understand these big concepts, as well. The hardest learning curve for most DJs who want to become producers is learning music theory and the creators of Skoove understand that which is why the application breaks down popular songs into easy, interactive lessons.
The Skoove platform is targeted at beginner piano students aged 12 or older. As long as the person has a modern web browser with a MIDI keyboard they can start taking lessons. A public beta is available for free sign-ups and after the beta has ended, the price of the service will only be $6 to $12 a month. If a DJ ever wanted to get into music production and needed to learn the theory, Skoove may be the easiest way to do so.
