Learn piano without sheet music
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…
Learn piano without sheet music launched on September 22, 2023 with 222 votes, #184 of 4,228 launches that month and more than 95% of that year's launches. The site was still online in September 2026, 3 years on.
In plain words
Learn Piano Without Sheet Music is an app that plays MIDI files with visual guidance similar to YouTube piano tutorials, without the upselling common in other piano apps. Users can import their own MIDI files or access a subscription library of classical music. The app displays music in an easy-to-read format rather than traditional sheet notation, making it accessible for users who find standard music notation difficult.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
Sheet music and piano practise reimagined
Piano Tabs includes a giant library of classical pieces with over 800 pieces from over 90 composers . If that’s not enough, you can import your own MIDI files. They’re the industry standard, and super-easy to get hold of. Pieces are displayed as you would play them on a keyboard, so there is no learning curve to get started. Scroll through a piece for interactive playback to help you either find or study a section. Looping lets you pick specific parts of the piece you want to practise. Just drag the top and bottom handles set the start and end of the loop. With a loop set up up, you can use the speed trainer to have it start each loop playing slowly, and gradually speed up after each loop.…from jacobdoescode.com
In the maker’s words, at launch
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…
Does a similar job
all alternatives →
My iOS app to practice sight reading (10 years in the App Store)2025 · apps.apple.com · ▲313Hello 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.
- SHShow HN Pianoboi – displays sheet music as you play your piano2025 · pianoboi.site · ▲109
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).
Just intonation keyboard – play music without knowing music2023 · ad8e.pages.dev · ▲331This is a keyboard in just intonation. It can play the notes a piano can. The big difference from a piano is that all the notes become consonant. At least, when you want to play a dissonant chord, you are clearly opting in to it because it's clear which notes are dissonant to each other. You won't bump into a dissonant note by mistake. You can play without knowing any music theory. Hit arbitrary notes with the rhythm you want, and the pitches will work. Not understanding the buttons is fine. Even rolling your elbow around your keyboard is fine. If you are a musician and press the wrong key…
Music notation training app with Web MIDI2024 · midi-note-trainer.teemukoivisto.xyz · ▲5Hello 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…
Source: Show HN post ↗ · launch text quoted in part
