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Are you an instructor or a teacher who is looking for piano games for your child or student? Then you have come to the right place. I set out on a goal to download and play a bunch of the popular piano games available for students.
It is my opinion that instructors can make learning the piano a little bit more fun with supplementing learning with games. These games aren’t going to make your students or kids into prodigies obviously, however, they should keep them motivated and excited to learn. These can be played by adults and teenagers as well as they’re not just designed for kids.
Note* These are more so fun, games and are not going to teach you how to play the piano. I spent a few hours with each of these games to make sure that these are the ones I wanted to present to you.
Remember these games are more so meant for fun, rather than purely educational purposes. If you’re looking for educational apps, check out the best piano apps here.
Benefits Of Playing Piano Games
The main benefit of playing games that are based on music or piano, is that it’s another way to keep music in front of your student. Everyone knows how popular games are nowadays, so why not take advantage of them and use them as another tool to learn?
I believe that some games will help develop your knowledge of music theory and dictation. I also think you can use these games as a way to start to develop your ear. Constantly listening to songs and hitting the notes can slowly start to develop your ear if you are focusing on that.
If your child wants to play a video game, a good trick you can use is to say yes, “how about you also play one of your piano games before playing your video game?” They will most likely agree and also be happy because they start to view the piano more as a game rather than a chore or something they don’t want to do.
As a parent, you have the ability to figure out ways to motivate your kids and keep them learning. This is something that I really believe you should take advantage of.
Are you looking for an upgrade or a keyboard for your child? You can read about all of the best keyboards for kids in this roundup here.
Best Free Piano Games
1) Magic Tiles 3 – Android & IOS
This is a game that you’re not going to learn a ton from, but it is a fun game to pass time. The way it works is you have keys that scroll down on your device and you click the keys in time. This will help in ways with timing as it will make you or child start to think when the notes need to be pressed.
Magic Tiles 3 is definitely one of the more popular piano games out there since it’s simplicity for the user.
Overall Thoughts
I believe Magic Tiles 3 is a great game for kids and it will slightly further their knowledge. Its purpose is more so to shape music as something fun in your kid’s life, rather than something that just feels like a job to them.
2) Don’t Tap The White Tile – PC
This is an app and also a game that you can play on the internet. I found this to be pretty amusing. Don’t Tap The White Tile spawns tiles and you have to click on the black tiles. If you hit the white tiles, you start the game over.
I believe this develops your brain and gets it used to having to react quickly when reading music. Yes, you’re not reading music, you’re just hitting notes that are on your keyboard pad, but you’re still associating them with notes.
Ever wonder if learning the piano on a keyboard is smart to do? Check out my thoughts here.
Overall Thoughts
Don’t Tap The White Tile is a fun game that allows you to challenge yourself. If you play it on the computer I believe it’s more fun as you don’t have as many ads popping up. Also, you are forced to use your fingers to hit the notes then as well.
3) Happy Piano – Rhythm Tap Tiles – Android & IOS
Happy Piano is a fun game and it is another scroller type of game. There are ads when you play this game and those can get annoying.
Overall Thoughts
Overall, I like this game. It’s not my favorite and I don’t like the pay to play system they set you up for. It is a free game, but like a lot of games, you have to purchases diamonds once you run out or just wait until they come back to you.
4) Dream Piano – Android & IOS
Dream Piano is your classic piano game that is similar to the other Guitar Hero type games. You tap the tablet or cellphone screen when the notes come and that is basically the game.
To me, it’s a fun game to pass the time. You can unlock new songs and the song selection is really diverse as well.
The only knock is that you will run into your fair share of ads, since it’s a free game. I completely understand this as the creators of the game have to monetize.
Overall Thoughts
Dream Piano is a game designed to allow you to play along to your favorite songs. You’re not going to be learning how to play the piano here, but you will be able to have a blast playing along to songs.
5) Pianista – Android & IOS
Pianista makes the list as it comes in similar to some of the games above. This piano game runs ads on it and also offers in app purchases, but the game itself is free.
Where this game veers off in a good way is that it aims towards classical music. If you love classical music, but you’re not at the level to play some of your favorites on a real piano, this game will allow you to do so.
Overall
I highly recommend this game for students. The classical piano song selection is great and it allows you to really feel like you’re actually playing the songs.
If you’re looking for easy classical songs to learn on the piano, I put together the above list for your entertainment. Some of these songs on my list are also available in the Pianista game mentioned above.
6) Full Of Music – Android & IOS
Full Of Music is a super cool concept game that aims at learning the rhythms to your favorite songs. There are some slight flaws in the gameplay, but it’s nice to pick your own songs and go with the beat.
This game aims at converting your music and making it into a game like you see above. It’s easy to play and it is pretty accurate overall.
Overall
Overall, Full Of Music is a solid game. This really emphasizes the rhythms in any of your favorite songs, making it great for beginners who aren’t great with rhythmic concepts quite yet.
7) Piano Music Go – EDM – Android
Piano Music Go aims towards EDM lovers in its approach. It’s very similar to the tile type games, however, it has a different song selection.
If you’re a fan of EDM music, you will most likely enjoy this game.
Overall
Totally for EDM music fans. If you want to try an alternative to the more popular games, this is a great option.
8) Piano Crush – IOS
Piano Crush is similar to the other types of games, but it is a little bit more in-depth.
This contains fun musical games that are your classic tap on the tiles, but it’s also a virtual keyboard with different sounds.
The interface is nice with this app because there’s a keyboard underneath where the notes scroll. This allows you to see which notes you’re hitting and it’s pretty helpful.
Overall
Piano Crush is great of IOS users who want to play to their favorite songs for free. You can also download the paid version and this will unlock all of the content available in the game.
If you’re someone who’s tried out other piano games and you haven’t had the best experience, I would definitely recommend Piano Crush. It’s a simple game that does a great job all around in my opinion.
Conclusion
There are a lot of games that you can find on the computer or in the app store. I really recommend finding some of these and presenting them as options to your kids for fun. Heck, you might actually enjoy playing these as well.
I like that games can break up your everyday lesson, yet still put music in front of your kids, just in a different way. I’ve recommended playing games like these even for those waiting for piano lessons as well.
Do you have any experience playing piano games? If you think I missed any that you really enjoy or that have worked for your kids, let me know in the comment section!