My Favorite Helpful Resources

In this post I am highlighting a few educational resources for developing music skills. The internet is filled with great music courses, blogs, and tutorials that are fantastic for becoming a well rounded musician.

The Royal Conservatory Of Music

I have studied piano under RCM for 10 years and it has been a wonderful experience. While the physical Conservatory is located in Toronto, RCM has a community of teachers living across North America. The Conservatory teaches numerous instruments, piano included, and has a structured and all encompassing approach to music education.

This program focuses on establishing well-rounded musicians by concentrating on four main categories of music education: Repertoire, technique, theory, and ear training.

RCM orders pieces and skills by difficulty and divides them into 11 levels ranging from novice to near concert mastery.

I wholeheartedly encourage RCM for anyone looking to gain confidence on their instrument and develop vital skills for playing music anywhere!

Staff Wars

I love this app! It’s cheap, fun, and super helpful for reading music. The app costs $0.99 and is a note recognition speed game. Notes flash on the staff of your choosing and you have to identify it as fast as you can. After identifying the note your “space ship” (thus staff wars) shoots down the note as it gets immediately replaced. Staff Wars is good for both personal practice and group practice in a classroom!

Earpeggio

This app is a free ear training course. I am newer to this app and find it to be informative, easy to use, and helpful. The app allows you to select what type of ear training you want to focus on: scales, chords, intervals, rhythms. You can also select a difficulty level to tailor your experience. The teaching style is similar to the way RCM teaches ear training. I really value ear training for developing instrument mastery and firmly believe that doing a little practice every day can make a huge difference.