Learning new songs on your favourite instrument usually involves hard-copy sheet music and manual page-turning. Tomplay was designed to change all that, enabling you to practise the piano, violin, drums and more in an interactive way.

What we love: While it caters to all levels, Tomplay stands out as a companion for beginners. If reading music isn’t yet your forte, the app can support you with a visual breakdown of the notes you’ll need to play in real time. And if you get stuck on a tricky segment, you can use the Loop feature to repeat and steadily polish it.

Quick tip: Mute and unmute different parts of the backing track, for example to practise with or without a singer, or record yourself playing and compare it to the original – there are plenty of flexible ways to learn in Tomplay.

Meet the creator: The app comes from Tombooks, a Swiss–based team led by Alexis Steinmann, an amateur pianist who came up with the idea for Tomplay together with his father. It’s the team’s mission to turn music-learning into an immersive experience and inspire musicians to keep practising.