Play piano online

How to play the online piano with your computer keyboard

On a laptop or desktop you don't have to click anything. The letter keys are mapped straight onto piano keys, so you can play with both hands the way you would on a real keyboard. The home row plays the white keys and the row above it plays the black keys, which puts each sharp exactly where it sits on a piano — up and slightly to the right of the white key it follows. Hold several letters down at once and you get a chord: the keyboard is fully polyphonic, so nothing cuts anything else off.

The mapping covers one full octave plus the C above it. Press Z to drop an octave and X to climb one, and the same letters play the new range — that is how you reach the low bass notes and the high ones without ever leaving the keyboard.

What this virtual piano can and cannot do

Which octaves are shown, and why 88 keys don't fit a phone screen

A full acoustic piano has 88 keys, running from A0 at the bottom to C8 at the top. Drawn at that width on a phone, each white key would be about four millimetres across — narrower than a fingertip, so you would hit two notes every time you aimed at one. So this keyboard shows a window you can actually play — two octaves (24 keys) on a phone, three (36 keys) on a laptop or desktop screen — and lets you move that window instead. The octave buttons (or Z and X) shift it anywhere from C1 up to B7, which covers nearly the entire range of a real piano — you simply see a playable slice of it rather than all of it at once. If you are picking out a melody, one window is usually enough; if you want a bass note under a right-hand pattern, shift down, play it, and shift back.

Will the keyboard you already have hold you back?

This is the question people ask most often before they buy anything, and it usually gets answered with a spec sheet instead of a timeline. What actually matters is when a given instrument stops being the thing limiting you. Here is an honest read on the four setups people ask about most, including what to do when you outgrow one.

• 61 keys, unweighted

  Good for roughly the first year, and the limit you hit first is repertoire, not technique.

  Five octaves covers almost everything written for beginners, all the pop and folk repertoire you are likely to want, and a large amount of early classical. What it will not cover is the moment a piece asks for a low bass octave or a high flourish that runs off the end, which in classical repertoire starts happening around late-beginner level. Unweighted keys are a separate issue and a slower one: they do not build the finger strength that weighted keys do, so moving to an acoustic piano later feels heavier than you expect. Neither is a reason to delay starting.

• 76 keys

  Enough for nearly all repertoire short of advanced classical, and the size most people never actually outgrow.

  At six and a bit octaves you lose only the extreme top and bottom of the piano, which most music never visits. If your goal is to play songs, accompany yourself, or write your own material, this is not the thing standing in your way and replacing it will not make you better. The upgrade that matters at this size is the action, not the key count: if the keys are still unweighted, that is what to fix next.

• 88 keys, semi-weighted

  Nothing about the instrument is limiting you. Anything you cannot play yet is practice.

  Full range and a key action with real resistance is the setup most teachers would ask for. Semi-weighted is not the same as a hammer action and an advanced classical player will feel the difference in fast repeated notes and in very quiet playing, but that is a distinction that starts to matter years in. If you are asking whether this is enough, it is.

• Second-hand, under a couple of hundred

  Usually the right call, provided you check three things in person before money changes hands.

  Press every single key and listen for one that is dead, stuck or noticeably quieter than its neighbours, because a dead key is the one fault that is rarely worth repairing. Check there is a socket on the back for a sustain pedal, since a lot of budget models omit it and you will want a pedal sooner than you think. And take headphones with you: a keyboard that sounds thin through its own small speakers often sounds perfectly good through headphones, which is how you will mostly play it anyway.

Three things people mistake for their own lack of talent

Everything sounds an octave off

If what you play sounds higher or lower than the recording, the instrument is almost certainly not at fault and neither are you. On a keyboard with fewer than 88 keys, middle C is not in the physical middle, so orienting yourself by eye puts your hands an octave out. The other common cause is a transpose or octave-shift setting left switched on, often from the factory. Find middle C by counting, not by looking: it is the C just left of the group of two black keys nearest the centre of the note range you are given.

Your hand will not stretch an octave

On some compact keyboards the keys are narrower than standard, which changes the stretch, but on a full-size instrument this is normal and it is not a permanent limit. Smaller hands reach an octave later, and plenty of pieces are written so that the stretch can be rolled rather than grabbed. Forcing it is how people injure themselves, so take the roll.

There is nowhere to plug in a pedal

The sustain pedal is not an advanced extra. It is what makes a held chord ring while your hands move, and its absence is audible from quite early on. If your keyboard has no socket for one, that is the single most likely reason it will start to feel limiting, and it is worth more attention than the key count when you replace it.

Play without sheet music: melodies to try

You do not need to read music to use this. Every melody below is out of copyright and simple enough to play with one finger — the letters are the note names, so switch on Show note names, find the matching key, and play them left to right at whatever speed you like. Repeated letters mean repeated notes.

• Ode to Joy (Beethoven)

  E E F G G F E D C C D E E D D

• Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

  C C G G A A G F F E E D D C

• Mary Had a Little Lamb

  E D C D E E E D D D E G G

• Jingle Bells (chorus)

  E E E E E E E G C D E

Start with the octave set where it opens, C4 to B5 — that is the middle of the piano, where these melodies sit comfortably. Once your fingers know one of them, try holding a low C with your other hand underneath: one note is enough to make a melody sound like a piece of music.

Online piano: common questions

Is this online piano really free?

Yes — completely. There is no download, no sign-up, no account and no trial period. Open the page and play. Piano Aura, the iPhone app it comes from, is also free to download.

Can I play this virtual piano on a phone?

Yes. Tap the keys with your fingers, and use the octave buttons to move up or down the piano. On a phone you get the touch keyboard rather than the computer-key mapping, for the obvious reason.

Why does no sound come out?

Browsers only allow audio after you interact with the page, so the very first key you press is what switches the sound on. If it still stays silent, check that your device is not muted and that the tab is not muted — and note that a few browsers block audio entirely, in which case the keys still light up as you play.

How many keys does this online keyboard have?

24 at a time on a phone — two octaves — and 36 on a laptop or desktop screen, where three octaves fit at a playable key width. The window shifts anywhere from C1 to B7, so nearly the full range of an 88-key piano is reachable.

Can I record what I play here?

Not in the browser: nothing you play on this page is saved. Recording, keeping and naming a take is what the app is for — it is the difference between trying an idea and keeping one.

Does it work as a digital piano for practice?

For learning the layout, testing a chord shape or picking out a melody, yes — and it is always to hand. It is not a substitute for weighted keys: there is no touch sensitivity here, so a browser piano cannot teach your fingers how hard to press.