Best piano app for kids who want to play their songs

Anything Piano is our product. We put it first where it’s the right tool, and we say plainly where another tool fits better.

The song decides it

Most piano apps for kids teach from a catalog the company chose. That works well when the song your child asks for is in it. When it isn’t, the app has no lesson for that song, and your child practices the songs on the company’s list instead.

Anything Piano starts from the other end. Your child can search YouTube inside the app, paste a YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram link, upload an audio file, record the song playing in the room, or import a song shared from Songscription by scanning its QR code. Whatever they bring becomes the lesson. Our guide to piano apps that let you practice any song compares how each app handles a song you bring.

How a song becomes a lesson

In about a minute, Anything Piano turns the song into a piano roll and splits it into parts your child learns one at a time: right hand, then left, then both, with progress saved after each part. It runs on Play Anything’s own music transcription model. In our October 2026 benchmark, Songscription, built on that model, ranked first in transcription and piano arrangements against Klang.io, Mirelo, and five open-source models.

While your child plays, the app shows each right and wrong note in real time. Wait mode holds the song until they press the right key, so a hard bar waits for them instead of running on. You can lower the playback speed, loop a part until it sits, and turn on finger numbers, which are shown in the song’s original key on songs that have them. Where a song has more than one difficulty level, your child can start at the lower one and move up later. Once the whole song holds together, a scored Mastery run rates every note as Perfect, Great, Good, or Miss.

The screen is a piano roll. Each note falls toward the key to press, its length shows how long to hold it, right-hand notes are green and left-hand notes are blue. Anything Piano doesn’t show sheet music (what it shows instead), so a child can start on a song before reading a note of music. We wrote more about that in apps to learn piano songs without sheet music.

What a parent needs to know

Anything Piano runs on iPhone and iPad with iOS or iPadOS 18 or later, and the App Store rates it 4+. Android and web are on a waitlist. When you set it up, the first question asks who’s playing, and you can answer for your child. The later questions then ask about your child, and if you turn on practice reminders, Annie, the app’s AI practice companion, reminds you when it’s time for your child to practice.

Annie helps with the song, too. If your child remembers how a song goes or a line of its lyrics but not the title, they can describe it to her, and she finds it so it can become a lesson.

You don’t need a new instrument. The app listens through the iPhone or iPad microphone, so the upright in the living room, a digital piano, or a small keyboard all work, and a quiet room helps. A keyboard with Bluetooth MIDI can pair inside the app, and USB MIDI works with the right adapter. You set the lowest and highest note once so the keys on screen match anything from 49 to 88 keys. If you’re unsure what your keyboard needs, read Do I need a MIDI keyboard?

Anything Piano is free to download. The free plan includes free song conversions and every practice tool, and Pro is $19.99 a month or $143.99 a year for unlimited songs. The details are in Is Anything Piano free?

Other apps parents look at

Simply Piano teaches through its own courses and library, and its courses teach reading sheet music. It has a version of its early courses, through Essentials II, for ages 4–10, with songs kids know and hand icons in place of finger numbers. It sells a Family Plan, and its pages describe no way to add a song your child brings.

flowkey teaches songs and courses created by its own pianists, with a video of a pianist and sheet music, and its pages describe no way to add your own song. Premium is $149.99 a year.

Skoove teaches from its own pop and classical catalog. You can ask its support team to add a song, but its pages describe no way to add one yourself, and searching the catalog takes Premium.

Yousician teaches from its own song library with video lessons and three notation styles, its pages describe no way to add a song, and Premium is $119.99 a year.

If you want your child to learn to read sheet music or follow a course a teacher laid out, Simply Piano is built for that, and Anything Piano isn’t. For a computer or an Android tablet, flowkey and Yousician run there today. For a wider look at where to start, see our guide to the best piano app for beginners, and the Songscription blog has a parent’s guide to piano apps for kids.

How we checked

We read each app’s own website, help center, and US App Store listing in November 2026 for where its songs come from, what the free plan includes, where it runs, and anything it says about children. Anything Piano’s details come from the app itself and its help center. We didn’t test how each app teaches children, so this article makes no claim about which one gets a child playing sooner.

Sources, checked November 2026:

• Simply Piano: website, App Store listing, song library, the app for children
• flowkey: website, App Store listing
• Skoove: website, App Store listing, songs
• Yousician: piano, App Store listing

Get Anything Piano and let your child bring the first song.

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