# Split the keyboard

Grade only one side of the keyboard and leave the other free for a bass line, a melody, or a teacher playing along.

## One keyboard, two jobs

Normally every note you play is part of your answer, so a stray bass note counts against you. With a split, only one side of the keyboard is marked. The other side still sounds, but the app leaves it out of the grading.

- A teacher at the same instrument plays the accompaniment low down while the student answers higher up.
- Your left hand keeps a steady bass or a boom-chick pattern going while the right hand does the drill.
- Or the other way round: the left hand is graded while the right plays a melody.

## Three keys to set it up

Press `/` on the practice screen. The app asks you to **play the split point** — any key on your MIDI keyboard. Then it asks you to **play a key in the part to grade**: a key above the split to grade the right side, or below it to grade the left.

![The practice screen with a message at the bottom: play a key to set the split point.](https://pianokitty.com/features/en/split/pick.webp)

![The practice screen with a green message “Split on — grading C4 →” and a C4 → badge in the bottom bar.](https://pianokitty.com/features/en/split/on.webp)

| Keys | Action |
| --- | --- |
| `/` | Set a split, or turn the current one off |
| `Esc` | Cancel while picking |

## Always visible, until you turn it off

While the split is on, the bottom bar shows it: **C4 →** means the right side from C4 up is being graded, and **← C4** means the left. The split stays on between sessions, so a teacher and student sharing one instrument only set it once. Press `/` again to grade the whole keyboard.

![The split badge from the bottom bar: C4 with an arrow pointing right.](https://pianokitty.com/features/en/split/indicator.webp)

> A split needs a [MIDI keyboard](https://pianokitty.com/features/midi), because it depends on which physical key you press. It is also a personal setting: an exercise you share never includes it, so the person you send it to plays on their whole keyboard.

## Split or “left hand plays”?

A split *ignores* one side of the keyboard. [Left hand plays](https://pianokitty.com/features/hands) *grades* both hands and gives the left its own part: the root, octaves or fifths. Use the split when the other hand is free to play anything, and left-hand mode when that hand is part of the exercise.

## Try a split

- Try it: [Triads, right hand graded](https://pianokitty.com/app?subject=chords&ct=0,1&bn=0,2,5,7,9&inv=0): Press /, play middle C, then a key above it.
- Try it: [Sevenths over your own bass](https://pianokitty.com/app?subject=chords&ct=6,7,8&bn=0,2,5,7,9&inv=0): Split at middle C and keep a bass going underneath.
- Try it: [A progression, left hand free](https://pianokitty.com/app?subject=progressions&prog=I%20vi%20IV%20V&mode=major&key=C&chart=true): I–vi–IV–V above the split, anything you like below it.
- Try it: [Both hands graded instead](https://pianokitty.com/app?subject=chords&ct=0,1&bn=0,2,5,7,9&inv=0&hand=both&lplay=octaves): Chord on the right, octaves on the left.

Related: [Left hand, right hand, or both](https://pianokitty.com/features/hands.md), [Choose your own voicing](https://pianokitty.com/features/voicings.md), [Plug your piano in](https://pianokitty.com/features/midi.md)

Source: https://pianokitty.com/features/split