Thomas Grayston is a software developer from Tasmania, Australia. He has produced an excellent app to help piano students learn to associate notes on the staff with specific keys on the piano.

Tell us a bit about your background. Are you a musician or a teacher?

Thomas plays piano and was a music director for church. His wife, Kylie, teaches piano and Thomas helps in her studio from time to time.

Tell us about your app, Note Rush.

Note Rush launched about a year ago and is designed to help students associate notes on the staff with keys on the piano. The app is student-paced, despite the name, to enable even the earliest beginner to think through the process of naming notes and play the appropriate piano key.

The app comes with a variety of themes to engage many interests of students.

Available for $3.99 in the iTunes App Store and Google Play.

How did you start this journey of creating a music education app?

Thomas’s degree is in computing and he is, by trade, a software developer. As a self-proclaimed “terrible sight reader”, Thomas relied on his ability to play by ear to create jazz improvisations more than reading music notation. He also noticed a weakness in sight reading for his wife’s students. In fact, this is a common struggle for many students.

It could very well be one the main reasons many students quit piano.

Using flashcards for practice at home isn’t as productive as you would hope if there isn’t someone in the home who can give the student feedback about their accuracy.

Gamification is bringing game theory and game design to an area where you want to be trained or a concept you desire to learn.

Thomas also earned his master’s degree in Technology-Assisted Training. Specifically, Thomas aims to use technology and apps to help close the feedback loop to inform the user if they are hitting the mark or not.

All games teach the player something. If you make a game where the goals align with an educational goal, players are learning a very useful skill, while having fun.

When I told my students that I was going to interview with you, I asked them what they would ask you and they said,

1. How long did it take to make Note Rush?

The idea was on the back burner for a while. The basic prototype came first and was tested with students. Thomas made tweaks and added additional features.  Note Rush was a side project Thomas worked on while he worked his full-time job. All in all, the app took about a year to develop, though it is always evolving and improving.

(Shelly’s sidenote: This makes me think of students as they work on their pieces. We start with the idea of a piece to learn, begin working on the basic foundation of the piece, and gradually add more expression and fluency as our performance of the piece progresses.)

2. Were there other names you were thinking about before you named the app Note Rush?

The first idea for graphics, before ladybugs, Thomas was thinking of using bubbles as notes on the staff. He would have called the app Note Pop.

3. What other backgrounds or themes are you planning?

There are several seasonal themes: Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, etc.

In the future, there might be the possibility of purchasing theme packages with emojis, animals, vehicles, and other collections that would appeal to children.