Ear training
Hear a note or a chord, then find it.
Free and open source · Mac, Windows and Android
Follow the light.
Keylight turns a light-up keyboard into a piano teacher. Notes fall, your keys glow, and the song waits for you.
How it works
- Notes fall toward your keys.
- Not ready? The song waits.
- Then see how you did.
Screen and keys, together
Your keyboard lights up with the song.
Every note on screen has a key underneath it. The key starts to glow before its note lands, blue for your left hand and orange for your right, so your hands always know where to go.
- LUMI Keys
- ROLI Piano M
- ROLI Piano, 49 keys Beta
- Two joined as one Beta
No keyboard needed for this part
Play it yourself.
This is wait mode. Tap the lit key, or press A S D F G H J K. The tune goes at your pace.
Tap the glowing key to begin.
76built-in songs
94short lessons
12course levels
$0for ever
Your own music
Bring any song.
Even an MP3.
Drop a recording on the window. Keylight listens to it, writes the notes, and turns it into a lesson with the original track playing along.
- 1
Drop a file
MP3, M4A, WAV, FLAC, AAC, OGG or AIFF, up to twenty minutes. MIDI and MusicXML files work too.
- 2
Keylight listens
The notes are worked out on your computer. Your file is never uploaded. Want it easier? Keep just the melody and a bass line.
- 3
Play along
The recording plays in sync and keeps its pitch when you slow it down. A wrong note? Fix it in the editor.
It becomes a song like any other.
- Wait mode, half speed, loops and both hands
- Cover art and lyrics, found for you on Mac and Windows
- Drop a lyrics file on a song to sing along
- Sheet music for MusicXML files
Works best with piano or solo recordings. Links to streaming sites are not supported.
Views
See the music your way.
One song, four looks. Pick the one that reads best to you, and change it whenever you like, in the middle of a song too.
Cascade. Notes fall in depth toward your keys, blue for the left hand and orange for the right.
Hands
One hand at a time. Then both.
Learn the left hand by itself, then the right, then put them together. Keylight plays the hand you are not practising.
Both hands. The whole piece, together.
Sheet music
Read it, with the lights on.
Switch to Sheet only and the falling notes give way to the score. The line shows where you are, the note that is due glows in the colour of its hand, and your keys still light the way.
- Same wait mode, speeds and loop
- Show the sheet beside the falling notes, or by itself
The course
From middle C to real music.
Twelve levels of short lessons, each ending in something to play. Go in order, or open anything you like: the course suggests, it never locks.
- Guided practice splits a song into phrases, one hand at a time
- It brings back the bars you got wrong
- Finger numbers on every note, if you want them
Practice
Train your ears, hands and eyes.
Rhythm
Listen to the count, then tap it back in time.
Sight-reading
Notes on the staff, one at a time, at your level.
Playground
Any sound, any scale, no score. Light up a scale and every note you play belongs.
Games
Find the key, name the note, beat your best.
Jam
Build a groove, one layer at a time.
Start a drum loop. Add a bass line, then chords, then a lead. Lock a scale so nothing sounds wrong, and export the result as a MIDI file.
And the rest
Small things that add up.
Fifteen sounds
Grand piano, a sampled concert grand, electric pianos, organ, harpsichord, marimba, strings and more.
Expression
Wiggle a key to bend the note. Press into it to make it swell.
Record your takes
Save a video of the falling notes and your playing, with sound.
Loop and slow
Mark the hard bar, repeat it at half speed, then bring it back up.
One hand at a time
Left, right or both. The other hand plays itself.
Daily goal and streak
Five to thirty minutes a day, with stars and badges to collect.
Two keyboards as one Beta
Snap two together for four octaves.
49 keys Beta
The larger ROLI Piano works too.
Backups
One file holds your songs, settings and progress. Daily copies are kept for you.
Labs
Still experimenting.
These are early. They are honest about what they can do, and they get better with every report.
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Camera coach Experimental
Point a camera at the keys and Keylight shows which finger is on which note, then compares it with the suggested fingering. It never changes your score.
- Runs on your computer. No video leaves it
- A phone on a stand above the keys works best
- Detect
- Test
- About you
- Review
- Send
Support my device
Have a keyboard that stays dark or only half works? A five-step check builds a short report so support for it can be added.
- Nothing is sent by itself. You read it first
- No serial numbers, names, songs or notes you played
Airwave gestures Experimental
Raise, tilt or close a hand above the keys to shape the sound. Finger tracking from the sensor is being tested with volunteers and is not confirmed yet.
A closer look.
What Keylight does not do
No account.
No subscription.
No tracking.
Your songs and progress stay on your device. The code is open for anyone to read, under the MIT licence.
Supporting Keylight
Free, and staying free.
Nothing here is locked, and nothing will be. Keylight is made by one person in spare time. If it has earned a place on your desk, a tip helps it keep moving.
What a tip pays for
The tools used to build and test each release, and keyboards to add support for. More devices is the most asked-for thing, and each one has to be on a desk to get it right.
iPhone and iPad are up to you
The app already runs on them. Putting it on the App Store needs Apple's developer membership, 99 US dollars a year. If supporters cover it, Keylight goes on the App Store. If not, it stays a version you install yourself.
Other ways to help
Tell someone with a light-up keyboard. Send a device report if yours is not supported yet. Report what breaks. All of it counts as much as money.
Once or monthly, any amount. No account needed to use Keylight either way.
Your keys are waiting.
Works with ROLI light-up keyboards. Support for more devices is on the way.
Mac: a disk image. Windows: an installer. Android: an APK file you open on your phone.
Windows and Android are in beta. They are built and tested automatically, but not yet on many real devices. If something is wrong, tell us and it gets fixed.
Coming soon iPhone and iPad, on the App Store if supporters cover Apple's yearly fee