Work · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Music notation training app with Web MIDI
Hello HN! It seems there has been an influx of MIDI projects as of late. I myself also got inspired to work on one last January. I had become frustrated in not being able to read my old sheet music without counting the notes mentally. I thought there had to be an easier way to learn them, I surveyd some apps but none of them felt right to me. So I decided to build one myself and learn some music theory too. I'm quite happy how it turned out, in the end. My sheet-reading has improved substantially although playing and remembering notes is two different things. It works best if you use MIDI…
Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Prices are shown for the 1 we have checked on their own sites, 1 of them free or with a free tier. Music notation training app with Web MIDI launched in 2024; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
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I always found sheet music way too hard to read - and I literally spent a year at a company building a sheet music rendering engine. I wanted an app that would display music like the tutorials on YouTube, but not be focused on upselling lessons etc. like most current apps, and also would let me import my own files This works on MIDI files. If it’s a valid midi it probably plays. Since releasing, I did add a subscription for classical music - on a theory that most normal users don’t know what a midi file is. It changed about a month ago from an up front price to in app purchases and/or a…
2023 · jacobdoescode.com · its alternatives →
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Hello HN, this has been my personal project for quite some time now. It has been a slowly evolving project over the years and its core function is for users to expose themselves to progressively more difficult lessons of music notes. NOTE: It is free and there are no ads. There is an in app purchase but most of the app doesn't require it.
2025 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
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LightNote▲242An interactive site to learn the basics of music theory 🎶
2016 · lightnote.co · its alternatives →
- 4AP
I'm building a video conferencing app designed to facilitate better remote piano lessons. My hope is to solve a lot of the challenges piano tutors and new students deal with when taking lessons through Skype/Zoom. It leverages WebRTC's data transmission to send media, MIDI state, and (eventually) send sheet music files and other musical data. I'm surprised with how well the MVP has worked and would love to hear any feedback or suggestions!
2024 · keyboardconnect.com · its alternatives →
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“Lend Me Your Ears” is an interactive web-based game inspired by the classic Simon toy (originally by Milton Bradley). It presents players with a sequence of musical notes and challenges them to reproduce the sequence using either an on-screen piano or a connected MIDI keyboard. Each correct response leads to a progressively more difficult sequence, testing the player’s concentration, memory, and pitch recognition. The game features two modes: - Simon Mode (focuses on auditory recall) - Practice Mode (displays standard sheet music notation to support learning) The game also includes options…
Jan 2026 · lend-me-your-ears.specr.net · its alternatives →
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I trained a 125M-parameter transformer to autocomplete piano performances in real time (~108 notes/sec on an iPhone 15). The idea is basically GitHub Copilot or Tabnine, except instead of prompting it with code, you prompt it by playing a few notes on a MIDI piano. The model then continues what you played, entirely on-device. The app is free if anyone wants to try it. Happy to answer questions about the model, training, Core ML, or the many things that didn't work.
Aug 2026 · simedw.com · its alternatives →
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Hello HN, I just released this music theory and ear training mobile app for guitar which I've been working on for a bit more than a year on the side. The idea was to make something for the eternally "intermediate" guitarist (myself included). There are a lot of beginner apps which rely on learning songs, toolkits which give you a bunch of stuff with no explanation but not many in-between apps to actually learn and practice more generic and somewhat advanced stuff. The app contains short lessons, recaps and most importantly challenges (visual, audio and pure theory) along with a very complete…
2025 · cadenceguitar.com · its alternatives →
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2015 · tonedear.com · its alternatives →
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Pianolyze▲149Hey HN, I'm a pianist who's always been obsessed with understanding how great players think through harmony. What voicings are they using? How do they voice lead through changes? What's actually happening under their hands? Back in 2022, I built Harmonic Analyzer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgSgvUmiOs) – a Mac app that used ML to transcribe polyphonic piano recordings. It got some traction, but I never quite finished it. Requiring users to download a Mac app felt like unnecessary friction, and I didn’t want to limit distribution to Mac users. I just shipped Pianolyze…
Nov 2025 · pianolyze.com · its alternatives →
- 10SH
I made a software library for displaying piano music 7 years back, and recently ported it to the web (which is now easier than even ever). It displays sheet music as you play, and let's you take snapshots of specific chords, then keeps a running list of chords as keyboard visuals (instead of just displaying sheet music). Just a simple tool for songwriting/ figuring out songs by ear, or just understanding music key theory (which I'm admittedly a still a beginner at).
2025 · pianoboi.site · its alternatives →
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🎹 Memorize piano scales with ease! A piano practice program w/ MIDI support. Consider it an interactive reference manual - ZaneH/piano-trainer
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Keys, scales, chords, notes & intervals - all on one page
2022 · its alternatives →
- 13SM
Hi everyone, my name is Kevin Lin, and this is a Show HN for my sheet music smart glasses project. My video was on the front page on Friday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43876243, but dang said we should do a Show HN as well, so here goes! I’ve wanted to put sheet music into smart glasses for a long time, but the perfect opportunity to execute came in mid-February, when Mentra (YC W25) tweeted about a smart glasses hackathon they were hosting - winners would get to take home a pair. I went, had a blast making a bunch of music-related apps with my teammate, and we won,…
2025 · its alternatives →
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Beats, a web-based drum machinefree▲160Hello all! I've been an avid fan of Pocket Operators by Teenage Engineering since I found out about them. I even own an EP-133 K.O. II today, which I love. A couple of months ago, Reddit user andiam03 shared a Google Sheet with some drum patterns [1]. I thought it was a very cool way to share and understand beats. During the weekend I coded a basic version of this app I am sharing today. I iterated over it in my free time, and yesterday I felt like I had a pretty good version to share with y'all. It's not meant to be a sequencer but rather a way to experiment with beats and basic sounds,…
Jan 2026 · beats.lasagna.pizza · its alternatives →
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MelodyScribe▲109Convert PDF files to annotated sheet music
2024 · melodyscribe.com · its alternatives →
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I built this app because I realized that I forgot about a song for a while and therefore got a lot worse at that song. The app will make you play your lowest-proficiency songs (something you just started learning) daily. Medium-proficiency songs (you can play them, but you have room for improvement) get played several times a week. High-proficiency songs (you have mastered them) are cycled through at the rate of approximately one-two per day. This app is in no way complete and probably contains bugs. With that being said, I have been daily-driving it in its current state for several days…
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 22
Hey HN! Last week I was working on a website and needed a way to synchronise visuals with live music. I've used MIDI controllers for this before, but I am travelling right now and don't have mine with me. So I had the crazy idea to build a browser extension that uses the keyboard as input and includes a sequencer. I gave myself 24 to work on it. It ended up taking longer (of course), specially since I ended up creating a demo, a small landing, docs, and an intro video. Took me one week from idea to launch (pushed quite a bit tbh). Features: - Works as a browser extension. Atm distributed…
2024 · minitap.io · its alternatives →
- 23SO
Hi HN, I've been programming for about three years, and this is my first full-stack web app. It's a tool for organizing musical ideas. Building and deploying it has been a great learning experience, and in that spirit I'd be grateful for any thoughts or suggestions if you care to take a look. Thank you! source: https://bit.ly/3giqrBU Why: Composing music is different for everyone, yet some practices are employed by many musicians. One such practice is to record a musical idea on a phone, capturing the idea at its freshest, and for many, clearest. This often leads to a lengthy…
2022 · soundseeker.app · its alternatives →
- 24
This started out when I vibe-coded a guitar scale fingering generator. It came out pretty good, and I started adding stuff to it: chords, then how chords and scales interact. Then I added charts for other instruments I mess around with: piano, cello, alto recorder. There's a complexity toggle to go from basic harmony to extended/experimental stuff. It's honestly still mostly a toy, but I thought other people might be interested in playing with it. Source is on github, so it's easy enough to run locally and fork. https://github.com/aleshh/gtr-scales
May 2026 · projects.alesh.com · its alternatives →
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- A platform for remote piano lessons based on the Web MIDI API alternatives
- I made a memory game to teach you to play piano by ear alternatives
- I trained a 125M model to autocomplete piano on-device alternatives
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →