flowkey

What flowkey is

flowkey is a piano learning app for people who want to learn piano by playing songs they already like. It is a product for learners: you subscribe, open the app next to your own piano or keyboard, and work through songs and short courses while the app listens to what you play. The company behind it is flowkey GmbH, which its site places in Berlin and dates to 2014, naming Jonas Gößling, Alexander Heesing and Ahmed Hassan as its founders. The site describes the product as an online piano learning platform that uses real-time audio recognition to teach piano through interactive lessons and a large library of songs, from beginner to advanced.

The pitch on the homepage is short: "Learn your favorite songs on piano, no matter your level." So is the list of what you need to start: "All you need is the flowkey app and your piano or keyboard." There is no teacher, no class schedule and no set curriculum you have to follow. A learner decides each day whether to work on a song, a course, or both.

How a practice session works

Each song opens with two things on one screen: a video of an expert pianist playing the piece, and the sheet music for it. A learner can watch the hands and read the notes at the same time, which helps someone who cannot yet read music fluently, because the video shows where the notes fall on the keyboard. The learner then plays along on their own instrument. flowkey lists five practice tools around that view, and together they describe the whole teaching method.

Wait Mode is the central one. The site says it "listens to your playing and waits for you to hit the right notes," so the song only moves on once the learner has found the correct key. For a beginner who still has to search for every note, that turns a full song into a sequence of small steps that can be taken at any pace. One reviewer on the homepage, who says they have used the app for a few years, calls Wait Mode "simply incredible."

Slow Motion plays the piece at reduced speed, so a learner can get the notes under the fingers before trying the real tempo. The Loop Function replays a chosen section until it is right, which means the hardest few bars of a song can be drilled on their own instead of restarting from the top every time. Select a Hand lets the learner practice the right and left hands separately before putting them together.

The site sums this up as practicing notes and chords interactively and receiving instant feedback. That feedback is the reason to use an app like this over a video course: a self-taught player working from a recording has no one to tell them whether the note they just played was the right one, and flowkey does.

The song library and the courses

flowkey's catalog has two halves. The first is the song library, described on the homepage as "thousands of songs from every genre and skill level." Songs come in "beautiful arrangements for all abilities, created by professional pianists." For a beginner this matters more than the size of the library: a simplified arrangement lets them play a tune they recognize long before they could manage the original, and the same song can come back later in a harder version.

The second half is a set of step-by-step courses. The homepage describes them as "easy-to-understand lessons that cover everything from music theory, mastering chords, and how to read sheet music." These give structure to a learner who wants more than a list of songs. Reading notation, knowing the common chords and understanding a little theory are the skills that make every later song faster to learn, and the courses are where flowkey teaches them. A learner can move between the two halves, using the courses to build skills and the songs to put them to use.

flowkey also publishes a magazine on its site with free articles for beginners, among them guides to reading sheet music, learning piano chords, piano songs for one hand and easy songs for beginners, plus a piece on great women composers. These sit outside the app, but they cover the same ground as the first courses and give a prospective learner a feel for how the company teaches before they sign up.

Price, trial and platforms

flowkey's site lists a free trial and one paid tier, Premium, with two billing options: EUR 24.99 a month or EUR 149.99 a year. The homepage invitation reads "Try flowkey now for free, with no obligations," and the site says setup takes "just two minutes" before you start playing your first songs. A learner can therefore find out whether the method suits them, and whether the app hears their instrument well, before paying anything. The site also sells gift vouchers, which makes a subscription a practical present for someone who has talked about learning piano for years.

The site lists the app for iOS, Android and the web, so a learner can use a phone or tablet propped on the music stand, or a computer next to a keyboard. flowkey's site gives an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 across 213,000 ratings. The website itself comes in eleven languages: German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Korean, Japanese, and Simplified and Traditional Chinese.

Beyond the app, the site carries a help center for support, a section for teachers, a partner program, and a page about its cooperation with Yamaha, whose name appears on the homepage under "In cooperation with."

What learners say

"Over 15 million people have enjoyed learning piano with us, from beginners to advanced players," the homepage says, and the reviews it prints, signed with usernames, cover that range. A complete beginner, dinner_at_eight, describes the app as "making me excited to learn" after never having played an instrument. Emma writes that before flowkey "it took me months to learn a new song" and that with it "you will learn songs in a third of the time." Jeff describes himself as "a retired person who long fancied playing piano one day" and calls flowkey "by far the most flexible app," adding that he finds the arrangements "particularly pleasing to my ear." Another reviewer recommends it to people who have played other instruments and "just want to transition your music knowledge to piano." The long-time user who praises Wait Mode suggests using the app "as an addition to your piano training," which is a fair description of how it can sit alongside a teacher.

Who it suits

flowkey suits adults and older children who want to play real music early and who are motivated by songs rather than drills. A complete beginner gets the most from Wait Mode and the courses on reading sheet music. A returning player who learned as a child can go straight to the song library and use Slow Motion and the Loop Function to rebuild fluency. Someone who already plays guitar or another instrument can use the chord and theory courses to carry what they know over to the keyboard. A pianist who has weekly lessons can use the app between them to learn repertoire faster, as the long-time reviewer does.

The trial makes it a low-risk first step for someone not yet sure piano is for them, and the annual Premium price is a known, fixed cost for a year of practice.

It suits learners less well if they want a person watching their posture, hand position and phrasing, because the app judges which notes you play rather than how you play them. A learner who wants that kind of correction will want a teacher alongside it. And it needs an instrument: flowkey works with your own piano or keyboard, so a learner without one has to buy or borrow one first.