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Music Lab

Play instruments, learn music theory
Play with the mouse, fingers or keyboard: A W S … is a piano row, 1–9 are the drums. Turn on sound in Settings.
More info

What’s in Music Lab

Music Lab has three parts. Play is a set of instruments you can play with a mouse, your fingers or the keyboard. Practice has drills for reading and hearing music. Explore has the circle of fifths and a chord builder. Every sound is made live by your browser, so there’s nothing to download.

Playing

  • Instruments: piano, guitar (standard, drop D, open G and DADGAD tunings), bass (four or five strings), ukulele (standard, low G or baritone), a note grid and a nine-piece drum kit.
  • Sounds: piano, electric piano, organ, marimba, music box, synth lead, warm pad, strings, steel, nylon and electric guitar, bass and ukulele. Any instrument can use any sound.
  • Key and scale: pick a key and one of 13 scales (major, the minors, pentatonics, blues, the modes or all 12 notes). The notes in the scale are marked, the key note stands out, and the rest fade. Label notes by name, by scale degree (1 2 ♭3…) or with do re mi.
  • The note grid only has the notes of your scale, one octave to a row, so nothing you play is out of key.
  • One tap, one chord: set “One tap plays” to a chord, and each note of the scale plays the chord that belongs to it in the key.
  • The readout names what you’re holding: a note and its scale degree, the interval between two notes, or the chord (inversions included, like C/E).
  • Keyboard: the row A W S E D F … plays like piano keys, white and black. On the note grid, A to ; is the bottom row and Q to P the next. Drums are 1 to 9.

The looper

Press Record: you get four clicks to count in, then everything you play is recorded into a loop of 1, 2, 4 or 8 bars that keeps going round. Record again to add another layer, on any instrument: a drum beat first, then bass, then chords. Snap to moves notes to the nearest eighth, sixteenth or triplet, and Swing pushes every other one late for a shuffle feel. Set the tempo with − and +, or tap it in. Undo take removes the last layer. Save the loop as a WAV sound file, or as a MIDI file to open in music software. The loop is kept in your browser.

The drills

  • Read the staff: a note on the treble or bass clef; tap its key. Add sharps and flats when you’re ready.
  • Find the note: a note name; find it on the piano, guitar, bass or ukulele.
  • Intervals and Chords: name them from the staff, or by ear.
  • Scales by ear: major, minor, harmonic minor, pentatonics and blues, or the seven modes.
  • Key signatures: name the major or minor key from its sharps or flats.
  • Scale degrees by ear: a short chord progression sets the key, then one note plays. Which step of the scale was it? This is how musicians learn to play by ear.
  • Rhythm: read a bar of quarter notes, eighths, rests and sixteenths, then tap it in time. Each tap is checked against the beat.

Tips

  • Treble clef lines from the bottom are E G B D F, and its spaces spell F A C E. Bass clef lines are G B D F A, spaces A C E G.
  • Hearing intervals: a perfect 4th starts “Here Comes the Bride”, and a perfect 5th starts the “Star Wars” theme. A minor 3rd sounds sad, a major 3rd bright.
  • Key signatures: with sharps, the major key is a half step above the last sharp. With flats, it’s the second-to-last flat.
  • In the rhythm drill, count “1 and 2 and” out loud. Sixteenths are “1 e and a”.

Questions

Is it free? Yes. No account and nothing to install.

I can’t hear anything. Check the Sound switch in Settings (the gear at the top of the page), your volume, and on iPhone the silent switch.

Can I use a MIDI keyboard? Yes, in browsers that support Web MIDI (Chrome, Edge, Firefox): plug it in and tick “MIDI keyboard”. It plays whichever sound is picked, and the looper records it.