The scales you need, not someone's list
Pick the key, the scale, how many octaves and whether you play hands separately or together. Play it on your piano, and seconds after you stop you get precise feedback on pitch, timing and evenness, note by note.
What it does
A technique practice room, and nothing else
No syllabus to work through and no exam to prepare for. You decide what needs work, the app tells you how it actually went.
Scales and arpeggios
Major, the three minors, chromatic, whole tone, the modes, pentatonics and blues, plus major, minor, dominant 7th, major 7th, minor 7th and diminished 7th arpeggios - from any of the twelve keys.
Technical exercises
Hanon's finger exercises, Lemoine's Etudes enfantines and Czerny's Op. 849, bundled and engraved in the app. Each one keeps its own practice history.
Hear it first
Any scale you set up can be played to you through the piano sound before you try it, so your ear leads your fingers instead of the other way round.
Try-it theory challenges
Read what a trill, mordent, turn or grace note is, then play it on a MIDI keyboard and get graded on the spot, with what went wrong when it did not pass.
Practice tools
A way in, and a way to keep going
Around the grading itself: a way to learn a scale you do not know yet, a queue that knows where you are weakest, and charts that show the work paying off.
Learn mode
Switch on Learn and the piano strip lights the next note of the scale to press, so you can learn a scale hands-on before you are graded on it.
Smart practice queue
Puts your weakest, least-recently practised scales first, so a short session goes where it counts instead of where habit points it.
Per-scale charts
Sign in and each scale on the progress page expands into its own charts: score, tempo and steadiness over time, the long view of every key you practise.
Feedback
Told what went wrong, not just a number
Every take is graded against the spec you set - the right notes, the full octave span you asked for, both hands if you asked for both.
Pitch, note by note
Wrong and missed notes are marked individually against the scale you chose, so you can see exactly where the shape broke rather than guessing from a percentage.
Timing and evenness
How steady the run actually was, and where it rushed or dragged, shown on a piano roll of the take you just played.
Dynamics and touch
How evenly you struck the keys, and whether the line was legato or staccato. These two need a MIDI keyboard - it is the only input that reports how hard a key was hit.
Keep your progress
Sign in and every graded take is saved, so you can see a key improve over weeks instead of trusting your memory of last Tuesday.
Graded against AMEB standards
The standard behind the score is AMEB's, in three concrete ways. Every take lands in AMEB's practical bands, A+ High Distinction down to D Not Satisfactory, rather than a percentage or a star rating. The band descriptions are condensed from AMEB's own framework. And the grader follows AMEB's tempo rule: where a required tempo is set, playing under it caps the result below a pass however accurate the notes were, which is how AMEB treats it rather than how a practice app would usually be tempted to.
What earns the band is what a MIDI cable can measure: pitch note by note, timing and evenness, and dynamics and articulation where velocity is reported. What it cannot measure is most of what an examiner marks, including tone, phrasing, presentation, continuity, and what your hands are doing. This build also has no syllabus in it, so it does not know which scales your grade asks for or how fast, and the thresholds between bands are a considered calibration rather than one tuned against real examiner marks.
So read the band as a practice signal in the language of the exam. It is not a prediction of your result, and a good band here is not evidence that you are ready. Student Coach will add AMEB grade requirements, and other syllabuses after that.
Scores here are a practice aid, not an assessment. Piano Coach is not affiliated with or endorsed by AMEB, ABRSM, Trinity or any other examining body: the bands borrow the vocabulary, not the authority. They are not a substitute for a teacher.
How to play it
Works with what you already have
A MIDI keyboard over USB gives the most detail, including dynamics and touch. No piano to hand? Your computer keys will do - useful for trying it right now.
Free while in beta
No subscription, no checkout, nothing to cancel. If that changes we will say so before anyone is charged.
Your account, if you want one
Practising here needs no account, and nothing is saved while you are signed out. Sign in and every graded take is kept, on one account that will carry across the other Piano Coach apps as they are released. Exam syllabus work is in development and not here yet.
No ads, no profiling
No adverts, no profiling, and nothing sold. We count page visits without cookies or any identifier, so nobody is followed between visits. Your practice data is yours, is never handed to anyone, and you can delete it whenever you like.
Free to start
Decide what needs work. Then find out how it went.
Set a key, a scale, the octaves and the hands, and play it. No piano handy? Try it right now on your typing keyboard.
Start practising free