Frequently asked questions

AS Music Theory is an interactive tool for learning, teaching, and exploring music theory. Instead of just reading about how music works, you see and hear every idea on an on-screen keyboard you can play — with the on-screen keys, your computer keyboard, or a MIDI controller. It pairs short, structured Concept lessons with open-ended practice Tools.

No. The Concept lessons and the Tools are open to everyone, anonymously — you can start playing the keyboard and working through lessons straight away. A free account is only needed to save your progress across devices and to unlock practice that schedules itself over time (see Accounts & sign-in below).

Yes. The core experience — every Concept lesson, the on-screen keyboard, and the Tools — is free to use. There is an optional Pro plan for people who want more, but you never need it to learn the fundamentals.

Complete beginners who want to understand how music works, students revising for exams or grades, teachers who want something hands-on to demonstrate ideas, and self-taught musicians filling in the gaps. The lessons start from "what is a note?" and build up to chords, keys and progressions.

Not at all. The lessons assume no prior knowledge and teach you to read the staff and play notes as you go. The keyboard is there to be pressed — you learn by hearing and seeing, not by being tested first.

Start with the Introduction to Music Theory guide, which lays out a suggested learning order from notes through to chord progressions, linking to a hands-on lesson at every step. Or jump straight into the Concepts index and follow the Fundamentals group from the top.

Click or tap the keys with your mouse or finger. On a touch screen you can press several keys at once to hear chords. The keyboard appears fixed at the bottom of the lessons and the home page so it's always within reach.

Yes — on a desktop or laptop, computer-keyboard input is on by default. The lower letter row plays one octave (Z is C, with the row above it for the sharps and flats) and the upper row plays the octave above (Q is the C an octave up). Use the arrow keys to shift the played range up or down by octaves. You can toggle this input off from the control bar.

Yes. If your browser supports the Web MIDI API (Chrome, Edge and Opera do), connect your controller and enable it from the MIDI control in the keyboard's control bar. What you play sounds through the selected instrument and shows on the on-screen keys, just like the other input methods.

You can switch between a sampled Grand Piano (recorded from a real Yamaha C5) and two synthesised sounds — a Synth and a Bright Synth. Pick your sound from the instrument control in the keyboard's control bar; your choice is remembered. The Grand Piano is the default on the lessons.

Browsers only allow audio to start after you interact with the page, so press a key or click once to wake the audio. Then check your device volume and that the right output is selected. The Grand Piano loads its samples on first use, so the very first note may take a moment; an audio indicator in the control bar shows when it's ready.

Concepts are short, focused lessons, each teaching one idea in music theory with a clear explanation and an interactive demonstration you can play. They're grouped into Fundamentals (notes, reading the staff, rhythm, time signatures, dynamics), Harmony (intervals, chords, scales, key signatures, chords in a key) and Key Terms (concise reference definitions). Browse them all on the Concepts page.

A Concept teaches a single idea in a self-contained interactive lesson. A Guide is a longer, plain-English walkthrough that joins many Concepts into a path, with a suggested order and a hands-on lesson linked at each step. Use a guide to see the big picture; use the concepts to drill into each idea.

The Key Terms are concise reference definitions of the words that the lessons lean on — root, tonic, diatonic; harmony, melody and rhythm; consonance and dissonance; inversion, voicing, arpeggio, chord progression and transposition. They're there to look up whenever a term is unfamiliar.

Yes — the glossary gathers music-theory terms with short definitions in one place, handy as a quick reference while you learn.

No — you can dip into any lesson freely. That said, the Fundamentals build on each other and Harmony builds on Fundamentals, so working roughly top-to-bottom (or following a guide) gives the smoothest path if you're starting from scratch.

Four, all on the Tools page: Piano Roll for recording and sketching ideas, Ear Training for finding notes by ear, Scale Practice for drilling scales, and Sight Reading for reading notation at the keyboard. Where the Concepts teach, the Tools let you practise and play.

The Piano Roll records what you play and shows it as a scrolling piano roll or on the staff, then plays it back. You can save your sketches, loop a passage, set a tempo and key, and export your idea to a MIDI file to open in other software.

Ear Training plays a note and you find it on the keyboard by ear, with higher/lower hints to guide you. It covers interval, in-key, absolute-pitch and pitch-class drills, so you can build relative pitch and aural skills step by step.

Scale Practice drills every scale from every root — you play them, spell them, and learn to recognise them by ear, across the major scale, the modes, and harmonic and melodic minor. Sign in and spaced repetition schedules the scales for you so you steadily master them.

Sight Reading shows four-bar excerpts on the staff for you to play back on the keyboard — your notes turn green when right and pink when wrong. Sign in and spaced repetition schedules your reading practice across easy, moderate and advanced tiers.

Spaced repetition is a practice schedule that brings each item back just as you're about to forget it — soon for things you find hard, and at longer gaps for things you know well. In Scale Practice and Sight Reading, signing in lets the tool track what you've seen and schedule your next session for you, which is far more effective than random drilling.

Yes. The Tools are open to everyone, and work saved while signed out is kept locally in your browser. Signing in is what unlocks progress that follows you across devices and the spaced-repetition scheduling in Scale Practice and Sight Reading.

An account saves your progress and sketches across devices and unlocks spaced-repetition scheduling in the practice Tools. You can create one free in a moment.

You can sign in with an email and password, with your Google account, or with a passkey (using your device's fingerprint, face or PIN). Set up whichever you prefer from the login page or your account settings.

A passkey is a passwordless sign-in tied to your device, unlocked with your fingerprint, face or device PIN. It's quicker than typing a password and resistant to phishing. You can add a passkey from your account settings once you've signed in.

Yes. You can enable two-factor authentication using an authenticator app (TOTP) from your account settings, adding a second step at sign-in for extra security.

If you register with an email and password, we ask you to verify your email address to confirm it's yours and to keep your account recoverable. You'll find a prompt to do so in your account settings if it's still pending.

Use the forgot-password link on the login page. We'll email you a secure link to set a new one. If you originally signed up with Google or a passkey, just use that method instead.

The Free plan is free forever and covers the core features. There's an optional Pro plan billed monthly for people who want more — the current price is shown on the pricing page. You can learn the fundamentals fully without ever paying.

Pro includes everything in Free plus priority support and access to advanced features as they roll out. See the pricing page for the current details.

Upgrade from the pricing page or your billing settings once you're signed in; payments are handled securely by Stripe. You can manage or cancel your subscription at any time from your billing settings, and you'll keep Pro until the end of the period you've paid for.

No. AS Music Theory runs entirely in your web browser — there's nothing to download or install. A current version of Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari on desktop or mobile is all you need.

Yes. The keyboard and lessons are designed to work on touch screens, so you can play and learn on a phone or tablet. A physical computer keyboard and MIDI controllers are desktop features; on mobile you'll use the on-screen keys.

Any modern browser works for the lessons and tools. Sound uses the Web Audio API, supported everywhere. Connecting a MIDI controller needs the Web MIDI API, which is available in Chrome, Edge and Opera but not currently in Safari or Firefox.

Yes — sketches and progress made while signed out are stored locally in your browser, so they're kept on that device. Clearing your browser data will remove them. Sign in to keep your work safely synced across devices.

We keep data collection to what's needed to run the service and your account. The full details are in our Privacy Policy, alongside the Terms of Service.

Head to our Contact page to get in touch. You can also report bugs, request features and join the discussion on the project's GitHub — there's a link in the footer of every page.

Please do — feedback shapes what we build next. Use the Contact page or open a feature request on GitHub.

It's built by App Software Ltd. You can read more about the project and the open resources it builds on — including the sampled Grand Piano and the audio engine — on the About page.