Here is a review of the iPad application for Adele Piano Songbook and Coldplay Piano Songbook, both developed by Musicroom.com. Both applications are identical, complete with biography, more apps, and help options.

Since I don’t know how to read music sheets, I am assuming all the timing, backing tracks and notes are perfect. I played the more popular hits (“Rolling in the Deep,” “The Scientist,” etc.), and they sound exactly as you would expect a pop song to be converted to “muzac.” Just imagine if your favorite hits were stripped of vocals and the music replaced with piano melodies.

I have seen piano tribute albums going for $10+ and piano sheet music books for $20+, so having both these things appearing in one iPad app seem like a real bargain at $7.99 each.

I do have some minor issues/bugs with the application; for one thing it doesn’t look great on landscape (you’ll notice that 70% of the screen is white with a small music note in the center). It just seems to me that this app was design to read in portrait mode, and the landscape option was an afterthought.

If you swipe to the next page, the automatic paging turning stops working. I don’t think this is a bug, but I found it annoying that the only way to get back to automatic page turn is to press pause and press start again. When it does work normally, the automatic page-turning feature is smooth and displays a live preview of the next page (this is perfect for anticipating the next set of keys).

Also, for an application that remembers your notes and annotations that you can leave anywhere on the music sheet, it sure doesn’t remember the size setting! By default each song is set to “small,” and will revert back to “small” when you go back into the song.

Outside of these small gripes, the software is solid. It didn’t crash or show slow-downs, and the Noteflight notation piano audio sounded great.

If you’re a pianist and want to play Adele and Coldplay hit songs, these affordable applications are perfect for you. You can pick up these apps on iTunes.

Adele Piano Songbook
Chasing Pavements*
Cold Shoulder
Daydreamer
Don’t You Remember
Hometown Glory*
Make You Feel My Love*
Right As Rain*
Rolling In The Deep*
Set Fire To The Rain*
Someone Like You*
Take It All
Turning Tables*

* with backing track

Coldplay Piano Songbook
Amsterdam*
Clocks*
Don’t Panic
Fix You
Green Eyes
In My Place
Sparks
Speed Of Sound
The Hardest Part
The Scientist*
Trouble*
Violet Hill*
Viva La Vida
Warning Sign
Yellow

* with backing track