# Look, sound and comfort

Choose a calm or a playful look, and adjust the small settings that make long practice sessions more comfortable.

## Professional or Playful

There are two themes. **Professional** is plain, with black bars and a single accent color, so nothing draws attention away from the chord. **Playful** uses violet, orange and green, which children (and plenty of adults) tend to like more. Only the colors change; every screen, button and shortcut stays where it was.

![The practice screen in the Professional theme: a black top bar and a plain, quiet layout.](https://pianokitty.com/features/en/look-and-feel/professional.webp)

![The same practice screen in the Playful theme: a violet top bar and brighter colors.](https://pianokitty.com/features/en/look-and-feel/playful.webp)

## More display settings

Next to the theme in [Preferences](https://pianokitty.com/preferences) you will also find these:

- **Exercise icons** gives each exercise a picture of its own, either an abstract pattern or a little robot, or you can turn the pictures off.
- **User-friendly exercise labels** shows names like “Major triads, white keys” instead of the technical shorthand.
- **Fireworks** celebrate when you finish something. If your computer is set to reduce motion, they start switched off.
- **Color chord blocks by quality** and **color each inversion** use color as a cue. Leave them off for plain black if you would rather read the names.

![The Theme section in Preferences: theme, exercise icons, user-friendly labels, fireworks, and the two color switches.](https://pianokitty.com/features/en/look-and-feel/settings.webp)

## For long practice sessions

- With **Keep screen awake** on, a tablet on the music stand does not go dark halfway through a scale.
- In full-screen practice the menus slide away and come back when you move the mouse to the edge of the screen.
- The piano and the metronome have separate volume controls, and for late-night practice you can have a metronome you watch instead of hear.
- The chord queue’s animation can be switched off, and the app follows your system’s reduced-motion setting.
- For bigger text, use your browser’s zoom (`Ctrl`+`+`) and the pages reflow to fit.

## Everything from the keyboard

You can practice without touching the mouse. Reveal, next, metronome, tempo, hints, key changes and inversions each have a key, and all the shortcuts are listed on one help page. It is quicker, and your hands can stay on the MIDI keyboard.

![The keyboard shortcuts help page: a table of keys and what they do on the practice screen.](https://pianokitty.com/features/en/look-and-feel/shortcuts.webp)

## Change the look

- Try it: [Theme and icons](https://pianokitty.com/preferences): Preferences, the Theme section.
- Try it: [Keyboard shortcuts](https://pianokitty.com/help/shortcuts): Every key on one page.
- Try it: [Baby mode](https://pianokitty.com/features/baby-mode): A simpler, playful mode for young children.
- Try it: [On a phone](https://pianokitty.com/features/mobile): The same app on a small screen.

Related: [Every setting on one page, for beginners and pros](https://pianokitty.com/features/preferences.md), [Piano sound and volume](https://pianokitty.com/features/sound.md), [A practice screen you can strip down](https://pianokitty.com/features/configurable-interface.md)

Source: https://pianokitty.com/features/look-and-feel