Songscription blog & music transcription resources
Explore Songscription’s guides to music transcription, sheet music, MIDI, piano roll, and AI-powered music learning, plus product updates and company announcements from the Songscription team.
Learning songs from a piano roll: how to read the falling-notes view, slow a part down without changing its pitch, and go from a recording to something you can play along with.
Piano roll
26 articles- Guide7 min readCan you learn piano with an app? An honest answerApps are good at the parts of piano a microphone can hear and weak at the parts only a person can see. Pick an app that plays the songs you care about, and add a teacher for the rest.Guide · · 7 min read
- Tutorial8 min readHow to learn a piano song from a YouTube videoYouTube has a tutorial for most popular songs and the original recording of nearly everything. Both can teach you a piece, but only if you stop treating the video as something to watch.Tutorial · · 8 min read
- Tutorial7 min readHow to practice piano hands separatelyPracticing hands separately is the oldest advice in piano teaching and one of the most misapplied. It works when it has a finish line and backfires when it becomes the whole method.Tutorial · · 7 min read
- Guide8 min readHow long should you practice piano a day?The honest answer is shorter than most people fear and more structured than most people manage. What you do in the time matters more than the number on the clock.Guide · · 8 min read
- Guide7 min readHow to learn piano songs without sheet musicThere are four practical ways to learn a song on piano without reading notation. Each one is fast at something and weak at something else, and most self-taught pianists end up mixing them.Guide · · 7 min read
- Tutorial9 min readHow to learn pop songs on pianoMost pop records were built in a studio rather than played at a piano, so learning one means deciding what the piano should do before you learn the notes.Tutorial · · 9 min read
- Tutorial8 min readHow to learn anime songs on pianoAnime openings are some of the most requested piano pieces online and some of the hardest to find in a learning app. The route that works starts from the track itself.Tutorial · · 8 min read
- Tutorial7 min readHow to learn TikTok songs on pianoThe part of a viral song everyone knows is about fifteen seconds long, and the version they know is often sped up. Both facts change how you should learn it.Tutorial · · 7 min read
- Guide8 min readHow to play songs on piano that have no piano partA guitar rock song, an a cappella arrangement or an EDM track can all work on piano. The skill is giving each instrument’s job to the right hand.Guide · · 8 min read
- Guide8 min readRelearning piano as an adult after years awayComing back to piano is not the same as starting it. Some of what you learned returns within days, some has to be rebuilt from scratch, and the plan should treat them differently.Guide · · 8 min read
- Tutorial6 min readPiano finger numbers explained (and when to ignore them)Piano finger numbers run from 1 for the thumb to 5 for the pinky, in both hands. They are printed above or below the notes to suggest which finger plays what. Here is how to read them, the patterns they encode, and when it is fine to cross them out and write your own.Tutorial · · 6 min read
- Resources8 min readDo you need 88 keys to learn piano?No. Sixty-one is enough to start and enough for most popular music. The question people should be asking instead is whether their app knows how many keys they actually have.Resources · · 8 min read
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