Pianote is trying to straddle this line more than any of the other offerings we found. It works the same as any other pre-recorded collection of lessons, giving you access to hours of lessons from professional pianists. But they’ve also included weekly live sessions and Q&A opportunities. This is really helpful, because it doesn’t require you to schedule one-on-one sessions, working around another teacher’s schedule, because you can just run video lessons whenever you want. But if you do have questions or concerns, there will be weekly moments for you to interact. This isn’t quite as good as the attention you’ll get from one-on-one sessions, but for our money, it’s the best of both worlds. They cover topics that range from general theory, building-block techniques, songwriting, and even improvisation. The whole thing costs $197 per year for a membership with the option to purchase separate lessons for $99 each. A few of the stand alone lessons they offer include Piano Riffs & Fills, Piano Technique Made Easy, Faster Fingers, and more. It’s the best year-commitment deal we’ve seen and because you have online chats, forums, and weekly live sessions, it’s a good hybrid online lesson system. The piano side of the platform is really helpful for beginners because it’s a really affordable price point (as low as $19.95 per month, which is discounted even further if you pay for the year in advance) and because it gives you a low-risk solution for learning basic keyboard skills. It operates much like a classroom, where at a variety of times during the day, students log into the virtual classroom and take lessons with a live teacher over video. You can do this on Google Chrome or via the app, so it’s really flexible from a device standpoint. You can start with beginner classes like “Fundamental Piano Techniques,” “Learn to Play the Piano with Both Hands,” or “Must Know Piano Chords and How to Play Them.” We really like this bite-sized format because it makes learning a new instrument not quite as daunting as it could be. TakeLessons has taught millions of lessons to hundreds of thousands of students, and because the premium subscription offers progress tracking and direct teacher feedback, it’s both personalized and easy-to-use. We’d prefer to see a few more direct private lessons, but we recognize the scale of that might be tough. But if you search “piano” in the search field, it brings up over 100 teachers capable of teaching you. From this page, you can choose your teacher based on a variety of criteria including their rating, their specialty, their language fluency, and even the price point. It’s the latter fact that impresses us the most here—most online lesson options tend to lean toward locking you in for at least a month. And while that monthly payment can tend to be less than some of these single-lesson payments, you can find teachers who charge an average of around $15 a lesson. There’s a messaging system available for communicating with your teacher, and you can even select from a calendar of available times right from login. This customization is really important, in our opinion, because it lets you set your lesson time based on your and the teacher’s schedule, not some arbitrary times scheduled by the service at large. It’s a really tailored experience. But the service makes up for this in its breadth of teacher selection and the customizable search terms with which you can find the right teacher for you. You start by entering search terms, which can be as broad as just general piano or as specific as something like Gospel Piano or Piano Composition. We really like this format, because it helps to narrow down the task of searching for a teacher, which can be pretty daunting. Once you’ve culled down your list, you can drill down and look more closely at specific teachers—the dedicated teacher pages on Lessonface are really detailed. They feature full bios, in-depth reviews, and more. From here you can choose to schedule a lesson, and though it isn’t quite as intuitive from a scheduling perspective as something like Preply, it does seem to give you some control over when your lesson will take place. You can also tailor your search by price, which is really helpful if you just want to try a lesson or two before locking yourself into a monthly plan. If you want to browse and find teachers, there are a couple of ways to do it. First, you can take the platform’s three-minute survey that will aim to pair you with a teacher based on your answers. You can also scroll down the page and find some filters to help whittle down the list. The filters are much more classically oriented than many other sites, offering music theory options, jazz piano options, or even filtering based on the Suzuki method of playing. This is great for those who want a more traditional approach, but might not be pop-oriented enough for others. The pricing depends on how long you want your lessons, whether they’re online or in-person, and where you are located. Online classes start at $20 for 30 minutes and are $30 for an hour session. In-person classes range from $50 to $60 for an hour session. It’s a solid option if you don’t want to have to subscribe to a service, and want a more classical approach. The prices for lessons were not readily available on the website. However you can sign up for one free lesson without having to provide a credit card. The service works in a way that’s more unique than just video tutorials—it’s more like a play-along app that you put next to your keyboard. There’s a live feedback mode that hears your playing, the option for slow-motion, hand isolation, and even tutorials from some of the leading Internet piano teachers from YouTube and more. It’s a pretty full-featured offering, provided you don’t want one-on-one video chats. Because it’s an online lesson that you don’t need to travel to, you’re already getting an inherent savings. Musika offers a risk-free trial lesson, which is more than you normally get with real lessons—a trial is usually reserved for the monthly-plan services. Online lessons cost $26 for 30 minutes, $37 for 45 minutes, and $48 for one-hour lessons. With over 1,000 teachers, and more than two million lessons taken, Musika has a track record that speaks for itself. Our writers spent 10 hours researching the most popular online piano lessons on the market. Before making their final recommendations, they considered 15 different online piano lessons overall, screened options from 15 different brands and manufacturers, read over 50 user reviews (both positive and negative), and tested 2 of the online piano lessons themselves. All of this research adds up to recommendations you can trust.
