How Octotune works

Octotune runs in the browser and listens to a MIDI keyboard (Chrome, Edge, Firefox), your computer keys, or touches on the on-screen piano. The music waits for each note, or plays along in time. It can be installed, works offline once opened, and opens your own MIDI and MusicXML files.

Octotune runs in your web browser. You play on a MIDI keyboard, on your computer keys, or on the on-screen piano, and the app checks each note against the music. In a lesson the music waits for you; in a song you can also play along in time.

Three ways to play

All three work the same way inside the app, so you can switch at any time.

• A MIDI keyboard or digital piano. Plug it in by USB (or pair it over Bluetooth MIDI where your computer supports it). The app reads every key, how hard it was played, and the sustain pedal. Most MIDI keyboards make no sound of their own through the computer, so Octotune plays its own piano sound.
• Your computer keys. The home row is one octave of white keys, starting with A for C; the row above is the black keys. Z and X move down or up an octave. This is how to try Octotune before a keyboard is plugged in, and how to play on a Mac in Safari.
• The on-screen piano. Tap with a finger or click with a mouse. Each finger is its own key, so a chord can be held on a tablet.

Browsers and MIDI

Safari has never supported Web MIDI. Apple has chosen not to add it, and every browser on an iPhone or iPad uses Safari's engine, so there is no way round it on those devices today. On an iPad, play on the on-screen piano. On a Mac, use Chrome, Edge or Firefox for your keyboard.

The first time you connect, the browser asks whether Octotune may use MIDI devices. If you said no by mistake, Octotune shows the steps to turn it back on and connects by itself as soon as you do. Connect a MIDI keyboard, step by step.

Wait for me, and Play along

• Wait mode is where reading starts. The cursor stops on each note or chord until you play it, with no clock running. Decoding the page is the hard part, and a tempo would only punish it.
• Note lengths. With note lengths on, a long note has to be held: a green fill rises up the key for as long as the note lasts. Let go early and you are asked to play it again, with no penalty.
• Play along (in Songs, and in the path from Unit 7) counts you in and keeps going at the tempo. Each note is judged perfect, good, early, late or missed. At the end you see which bars gave you trouble, and one tap loops the hardest ones slowly.
• Watch and listen plays a song for you first, with the keys lighting up.

Wrong notes are explained, not just marked. Played the right letter in the wrong octave, or a note next door? The line above the piano says which, so you know what to fix.

Sheet music and falling notes

Songs open with the sheet music on top and a strip of falling notes above the keys. Each note falls onto the key that plays it, with its finger number, coloured by hand: blue for the right, amber for the left. Show either one alone, or both.

The aim is reading. Once a song is learned on falling notes, try it from the sheet alone.

Every song comes with help to learn it:

• Levels. The tune alone, the tune over a simple bass, or the piece in full.
• One hand at a time. Choose right, left or both; the app plays the hand you aren't playing.
• Speed from 25% to 150%, and an A–B loop to repeat a few bars.
• Fingering. A song without fingering gets it suggested, the way a teacher would pencil it in, and marked as suggested.

Drive it from the piano

Your hands can stay on the keys. When the screen asks a question:

• any C means OK (continue, start, again);
• any B means back;
• D, E, F, G and A pick the second to sixth choices, in the order the buttons show them;
• a quick tap of the sustain pedal is OK too.

Any octave works, so it is the same on every size of keyboard. On the computer keyboard, Space or Enter is OK and Esc is back. With a MIDI keyboard there are more shortcuts: R starts over, L loops a bar, [ and ] slow down or speed up, and ? lists them all.

Install it, and play offline

Octotune is a web app you can install: use your browser's install button, or "Add to Home Screen" on a phone or tablet. It then opens in its own window, full screen, with its own icon.

After one visit online the app opens offline. A song or lesson plays offline once you have opened it online, and each instrument once it has played. Updates download in the background and never interrupt you: a new version takes over the next time you open the app.

Your own music

In Songs, you can open your own MIDI or MusicXML file. A MIDI file is written out as sheet music. Your file gets the same help as the library: levels, one hand at a time, suggested fingering. Imported files stay on your device; they are not uploaded anywhere. Files over 2 MB or 20,000 notes are too big to learn here.

Two modes, one app

Each mode keeps its own progress. Kids mode is for children from 2½; the Adult path is the 12-unit course.

Open Octotune

The Octotune team · Updated 23 September 2026