How This App Works
Easy Music invites kids to play music games with frogs, a whale, a bear and a fox. It also teaches kids how to play songs on a colorful rainbow piano; and lets kids compose their own songs by using unusual items found in three rooms inside of a sandcastle. By presenting music games in unconventional ways, this app makes learning about pitch, beats, rhythm, and melody seem like play. Its goal is to help kids develop an ear for music.
4 Music Games
As kids travel through nature, they encounter animals that want to play games. Each of the games has 25 levels that get progressively harder. Kids can switch among the games as they explore.
The frogs offer a memory game about repeating musical sequences. It gets progressively harder by asking kids to not only remember which frog made the sound, but also how it made it and for how long.
With the singing whale, kids join in by repeating the whale's song, tapping on underwater musical vents. The game starts with kids finding tones using two vents, but gradually builds up to seven.
The bear is into making musical rhythms by clapping his paws and tapping his feet. The object of this game is to listen to the number of percussive hits and tap that same number on a flower. At level 15, the bear turns around so that players can't see the action, forcing them to rely on listening only.
The fox needs the player's help to keep some pesky bees from stinging him. If kids can tap on the bees in the rhythm created by the fox, the bees don't sting him.
Learning Songs and Exploring Composition
Instead of starting with a traditional piano, this app presents a rainbow piano and uses its colors for teaching kids how to play simple songs. It breaks each song into small sequences for memorization and then combines them at the end. Within the sandcastle, kids find three rooms filled with interactive objects that create sounds. They can experiment and then use the objects to compose their own song to share with others.
App Analysis
Easy Music's four music games do a good job of introducing kids to musicality without introducing music theory. The games with the frogs and the whale are the apps strongest. Their progression is steady and makes sense.
The Fox game suffers a little because it isn't intuitive, and it eventually gets really hard. At first, you see the bees fly by in a manner to visually represent the rhythm. Kids tap on the bees to redirect them as they pass near their hive. The visual hints help kids to learn. But by level 17, kids have to tap the bees out of the hive, and without any visual representation. The rhythms at this point get a lot harder, and when you screw up, you have to start over. We think the developers may want to tweak these hard difficulty levels to make them easier and less frustrating.
The Bear's percussive-sound game was the least fun. Instead of replicating a rhythm, kids are asked to count the percussive beats and then methodically tap a flower the correct number of times. We also found the upper levels of the Bear's percussive-sounds game to be very hard. The beats happen quickly and are frequently syncopated. Again, we suggest that Seven Academy tweak the difficulty levels to make success easier.
Even with these reservations, we awarded Easy Music a 4-star (out of 5) rating because we believe that the app offers plenty of fascinating content in the first 15 levels of the Fox and Bear games, and in all 25 levels of the Frogs and Whale games. Plus, the sandbox mode of letting kids compose is great, and the Rainbow Piano activity is cleverly done.
Best For
Easy Music is unique in its purpose of training a child's ear for music. It's a fun way to introduce the language of music to children without getting into music theory. I would introduce this app before deciding to start formal music lessons. But parents, watch the frustration levels of your children in the Fox and Bear games, and redirect them to the app's other activities if the need arises. Parents can see their kids' progress under the app's parental section. There is also an excellent Parental Guide.
Teachers, this app allows up to 40 children to be tracked.
If you are interested in other music apps worth downloading, check out our
Top Music Apps for Kids rec list.This kids' app review of Easy Music was written by Jinny Gudmundsen.
All tech products are judged on a five star scale by looking at the following factors: fun, education, ease of use, value, and technical.
