ABRSM, the exam board of the Royal Schools of Music, has launched its Piano Practice Partner app to help students practise pieces for its Piano exams. A flexible tool that makes practising ABRSM Piano exam pieces for Grade 1 to 3 more musical, enjoyable and rewarding, Piano Practice Partner is now available to download from iTunes and Google Play for both smartphones and tablets.

How it works

Piano Practice Partner allows learners to practise the left or right-hand of the music separately, while the app plays the other hand. The app has a unique guide function to help learners stay in time through long rests and tempo changes as well as the ability to slow down or speed up the music to a tempo that suits the user. Piano Practice Partner is useful for learning or teaching pieces from Grades 1 to 3 of the ABRSM Piano Syllabus 2015 & 2016. Stuart Briner, ABRSM’s Digital Learning Manager, said: ‘Used in conjunction with our Grade 1-3 repertoire books, Piano Practice Partner is a great way to prepare your pieces in a flexible, and enjoyable way. There are many ways this app can be used whilst learning new pieces, from working at different speeds to setting markers to allow repeated practice of challenging sections, or developing memorisation skills. We hope Piano Practice Partner will be a useful, musical and inspiring tool for anyone teaching or learning our Grade 1-3 piano repertoire.’