Play the piano you have.
Learn piano and read music
The piano app for your real piano: plug in any keyboard, read real sheet music, and play real pieces.
Free to start. Works with a MIDI keyboard, your computer keys, or the screen.
Made for a real piano
Plug in any MIDI keyboard or digital piano, by USB (or Bluetooth, where your computer supports it). Octotune reads every key, how hard you play it and the sustain pedal, and every button has a key, so your hands never leave the piano.
- Any C goes on, B goes back
- Chrome, Edge and Firefox hear your keyboard
- No keyboard yet? Your computer keys or the screen
Kids mode, from 2½
Piano before reading. Note friends in their own colours, a band to play along with, and every step shown with a picture and a lit key. No reading, no voice, no ads and no tracking.
Learn to read music
A path of short sittings, a few minutes each: middle C, then both clefs, ledger lines, rhythm, the keys of G and F, chords and sight-reading, always on a real staff.
Real pieces, not exercises
124 pieces to learn: 15 children’s songs in our own arrangements and 109 classical works, from Bach to Joplin, typeset by volunteers of the Mutopia Project. Read the sheet, follow the falling notes, or both.
Practise your way
The music waits for your note, so reading is never a race. When a passage is hard, take it apart:
- Wait for me: the next note waits until you play it
- One hand at a time, while the app plays the other
- Loop the bar that trips you up
- Slow it down, then bring it back up to speed
How it works
Plug in, or just play
Connect a MIDI keyboard or digital piano, or play on your computer keys or the screen.
Follow the path
A few minutes a day. Each sitting teaches a few notes, and the next stop is always marked.
Play real music
Every unit ends in pieces that use only the notes you have learned.
Guides to reading music
- Ledger lines explainedLedger lines are short extra staff lines above and below the staff: every note on them from C2 to C6, in both clefs, with a diagram of each.
- Bass clef notesEvery note of the bass clef with a diagram of each: its lines and spaces, the F between the clef’s two dots, and how the left hand finds them.
- Treble clef notesEvery note of the treble clef, line by line and space by space, with a diagram of each, and how to find it on the keys from a landmark.
- Piano for toddlersWhat a 2½-year-old can learn at the piano before reading: a steady beat, high and low, loud and soft, and the black-key groups.
Questions
- Do I need a MIDI keyboard?
- No. A MIDI keyboard or digital piano is the best way to play, but you can also use your computer keys or the on-screen piano.
- Is Octotune free?
- Octotune is free to start. Open it in your browser and play; there is nothing to install and no account to make.
- Can a young child use it?
- Yes. Kids mode is for children from about 2½. It needs no reading and speaks no words: it shows each step with pictures, sounds and lit keys.
More about Octotune
Octotune is a piano app for your real piano. It runs in your web browser, reads the notes you play on a MIDI keyboard or digital piano (or on your computer keys, or the screen), and teaches you to read sheet music one short sitting at a time. There is nothing to install and no account to make, and it is free to start.
What it teaches
Grown-ups follow a 12-unit path from middle C to both clefs, ledger lines, rhythm, the keys of G and F, chords and sight-reading. The method is landmark reading: learn middle C, treble G and bass F on sight, and read every other note as a step or a skip from one of them.
Children from 2½ start in Kids mode, before the staff: high and low, loud and soft, a steady beat, and the black keys in twos and threes. Then coloured circles, then the staff. Nothing is spoken and nothing needs reading.
The music waits for you
In a sitting, the note on the page stays under the cursor until you play it. In a piece you can choose Wait for me, play one hand while the app plays the other, loop a bar and slow it down. When you are ready, Play along keeps time and tells you how close each note was.
Works with
| You have | What to do |
|---|---|
| A MIDI keyboard or digital piano | Plug it in (USB, or Bluetooth where your computer supports it). Chrome, Edge and Firefox can hear it. |
| A computer | Play on your computer keys: the home row is the white keys, the row above the black keys. |
| A tablet or phone | Play on the on-screen piano. Each finger is its own key, so you can hold a chord. |
Safari, on a Mac, iPhone or iPad, cannot connect to MIDI keyboards: Apple has never added Web MIDI to its browser. Octotune still works there with the on-screen piano and the computer keys. How Octotune works has the details.
Privacy, in one line
No ads. No analytics. Children never sign in. Your progress is kept on your own device, and a grown-up can choose to sign in with Google to keep it safe across devices. Read the privacy page.
More questions are answered in the FAQ.
Ready to bring it to the piano?
Free to start, in your browser. No app store, and no account needed.
Get started