Free online virtual piano

This virtual piano is a full, playable keyboard in your browser: real, recorded piano sound you can play with a mouse, a touchscreen, your computer keyboard, or a MIDI keyboard — three octaves on the simple tab, up to 61 keys on the Pro tab. Below is how the keyboard is laid out, how to find your way around it, how to start playing notes, chords, scales, and your first tune, and what the Pro tab adds for practice.

How a piano keyboard is laid out

A keyboard looks like a long row of keys, but it is really one short pattern repeated over and over. Twelve keys — seven white and five black — make up that pattern, and it starts again at the same point up and down the whole instrument. Learn where the notes sit in one octave and you know them everywhere, which is what makes the piano such a clear way to see how music is built.

The black keys are your landmark. They sit in alternating groups of two and three, with a gap in the white keys between the groups. Those clusters are what let you read the keyboard at a glance instead of counting up from the end every time, so it is worth training your eye to spot them first.

Finding C and middle C

C is the white key immediately to the left of each group of two black keys. That one rule places every C on the keyboard, and from any C the white keys run up in order: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, then C again an octave higher. Once you can find C on sight, every other white key is just a step or two away from it.

Middle C is the C nearest the middle of a full piano — the reference point most sheet music is written around, sitting just below the treble staff and just above the bass staff. On this keyboard, when you play with the computer keys, the A key is always middle C, so you have a fixed anchor to count from no matter what.

The distance from one C to the next — eight white keys — is an octave. The two notes share a name and sound alike, one clearly higher, because the higher one vibrates at exactly twice the frequency of the lower. That doubling is why the pattern repeats: every octave is the same twelve keys over again, just higher or lower.

The black keys: sharps and flats

Each black key sits between two white keys and takes its name from them. The black key between C and D is C sharp, a half step above C, or D flat, a half step below D — the same key with two names. Which name you use depends on the key you are playing in, but the pitch is identical. A half step is simply the distance to the very next key, black or white; two half steps make a whole step. Almost everything in music theory is measured in those two units, and on a keyboard you can see them directly.

Turn on “Show note names” to label the keys while you are learning where each one is, then switch it off once your eye knows the pattern so you are reading the keyboard rather than the labels.

Why the piano shows music so clearly

Unlike most instruments, a piano lays every note out in a straight line from low to high, with no note hidden or duplicated in an awkward place. That is why it is the instrument teachers reach for to explain how music works. A half step is always the very next key; an octave is always the same eight-white-key jump; a chord is always the same visible shape. Distances you would have to memorise on a guitar fretboard are simply there in front of you, in order. Even if the piano is not your main instrument, a few minutes here makes ideas like intervals, scales, and chords concrete in a way that carries back to whatever you play. To hear a single interval on its own, the interval finder plays the two notes and names the distance between them.

Playing with your computer keyboard

You do not need a mouse for every note. The A-to-K row of letters plays the central octave: A is middle C, and S, D, F, G, H, J, K step up the white keys from there to the next C. The black keys sit on the row above — W, E, T, Y, U — lined up with the gaps between the white ones, exactly as the real black keys are. Press two or three keys at the same time and they sound together, so you can play a chord and not just single notes.

The mapping follows the physical position of the keys, not the letters printed on them, so it works the same on a German, French, Russian, or any other keyboard layout: the key where A sits on an English keyboard is always middle C. On the Pro tab the row keeps going past K — O, L, P, the semicolon, and the apostrophe take you up to the F above — and the Z and X keys move the whole row down or up an octave, so you can reach any part of a 61-key keyboard without touching the mouse. Turn the labels to “Computer keys” and each key shows the character your own keyboard puts there.

Prefer to point and click? Every key responds to a mouse click or a tap, so the piano works the same on a phone or tablet as it does on a laptop. Clicking is often easier when you are hunting for a specific note; the computer keys are quicker once you know the layout. On the Pro tab you can also glide: hold the mouse button or keep a finger down and slide along the keys to play each one you pass.

Playing chords

A chord is three or more notes played together, and the most common building block is the triad: a root note, the note two white keys up from it, and the note two white keys above that. Start on C and play C, E, and G together and you have a C major chord — bright and settled. Slide the same shape up so it starts on G and you get G, B, D, a G major chord; start it on F and you get F, A, C. The shape is the same wherever you put it, which is the real payoff of seeing chords on a keyboard.

Minor chords come from lowering the middle note of the triad by a half step. C, E flat, G is C minor, which sounds noticeably darker than C major even though only one note moved. If you want to see how any chord is spelled before you reach for it, the chord finder lights up its notes on a keyboard and names them, and you can copy the shape straight onto this piano.

Chords are what most songs are built from, played in short sequences called progressions. One of the most common in pop and folk is C, G, A minor, F — four chords that carry a huge number of songs. Play each in turn, a few beats apart, and you will hear how a progression creates the sense of movement and return that a melody sits on top of.

Playing scales

A scale is a run of notes in a fixed pattern of steps, and the easiest one to find here is C major: start on any C and play only the white keys up to the next C. That gives the familiar do-re-mi sound. It works because a major scale follows the step pattern whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half — and starting from C, that pattern happens to land exactly on the white keys. Begin the same pattern on any other note and you will need some black keys to keep the steps right, which is a good way to feel why different keys use different sharps and flats. To map a scale out on the keys before you play it, the scale finder shows every note of any scale, spelled with sharps or flats to match its key.

Playing your first tune

Pick a melody you know well and find it one note at a time with your right hand. Nursery tunes and folk songs mostly move by small steps between neighbouring notes, so they are forgiving to hunt out by ear. Say or hear each note’s name as you play it, so the name, the key, and the sound start to link together instead of staying separate facts.

If you want to build that link faster, the note finder shows you every place a given note lives on the keyboard, and the note reading trainer drills the core skill of seeing a note on the staff and finding its key. Once a melody is steady in your right hand, you can add simple chords underneath with your left — often just the root note or the full triad of the chord the tune is sitting on.

How this differs from an acoustic piano

The layout is identical, and that is the whole point: where the notes sit, how chords are shaped, how scales run — all of it transfers straight to a real instrument. A few things are different. A full acoustic or digital piano has 88 keys across roughly seven octaves; the simple tab gives you three, which is plenty for melodies, chords, and learning the geography, and the Pro tab goes up to 61 keys — five octaves, the size of most home keyboards — for pieces that reach further. An acoustic piano’s keys are weighted and touch-sensitive, so how hard and fast you press changes the volume and tone, while on-screen keys do not respond to pressure. And the sound here is high-quality recorded samples of a real piano rather than live strings and hammers. None of that changes what you learn — only how it feels under the hands.

One more difference worth knowing about is the sustain pedal. On a real piano, holding the right pedal lets the strings keep ringing after you lift your fingers, which is how players blend chords and notes into a smooth, connected sound. On the simple tab each note rings for a moment and fades on its own, so you get a clean, isolated tone for every key — useful for hearing exactly what a note or chord sounds like. The Pro tab behaves like the instrument: a note sounds for as long as you hold its key and stops when you let go, and holding the space bar (or ticking “Sustain pedal”) keeps everything ringing until you release it, so you can practice the pedaling a real piece needs.

The Pro tab: sustain, more keys, and your own sound

The Pro tab is the same piano with every setting exposed, and it is free like the rest of the page. Choose 37, 49, or 61 keys — the last is the size of a typical home keyboard and covers five octaves. Pick the sound: the grand piano samples, an acoustic guitar for checking a part you will play on the guitar, or a soft electric-piano tone. Set the volume, and choose what the keys are labeled with: note names (with the octave marked on each C, so C4 is easy to find), the keys on your computer keyboard, or nothing at all once you know your way around. The pale band on the keys shows where the computer-keyboard row currently sits; move it with Z and X.

Playing with a MIDI keyboard

If you own a digital piano or a MIDI controller, plug it into your computer over USB, open the Pro tab, and click Connect. Your keys then play this piano — with velocity, so a soft touch gives a soft note — and the on-screen keys light up as you play, which is a handy way to check what you are pressing while you learn. The sustain pedal on your keyboard works too. MIDI input needs Chrome, Edge, or another Chromium-based browser; the rest of the page works everywhere.

Record yourself and download the take

The recorder on the Pro tab captures the notes you play rather than a microphone recording, so there is nothing to allow and no background noise. Press Record, play, press Stop, and the take plays back on the keys — you see each note light up as you hear it, which is the most honest way to check a passage. Download WAV renders the take with the same instrument sound into a standard audio file that opens anywhere, so you can send a teacher what you played or keep a record of your progress. Nothing is uploaded; the take stays in your browser.

A metronome while you play

A steady pulse turns a run-through into practice. The Pro tab has a simple click built in — set the tempo, press Start, and play against it — so you do not have to keep a second tab open. For subdivisions, accents, and trainers, the full metronome has its own page.

Everything here is free

There is no paid tier. The simple piano, the Pro tab, the instruments, MIDI input, the metronome, and the recorder are all free to use in any modern browser on a computer, tablet, or phone, with nothing to install and no account to create.

Tips for learning at the keyboard

• Practice in short, frequent sessions. Recognizing keys and notes builds through repetition, not through one long push once a week.
• Name each note as you play it, so you are learning the keyboard itself and not just a sequence of finger movements.
• Learn the landmark notes first — every C, then the F and G that frame the three-black-key group — and read other notes by their distance from a landmark.
• Start with the right-hand melody on its own, and add the left hand only once the tune is steady.
• Keep a light, curved hand and let the finger drop onto the key; a relaxed touch is easier to control than a stiff, flat one.
• Once a tune is steady, play it against the metronome so your timing stays even as the notes get harder.