FAQ — Frequently asked questions

A few ways in, pick one:

• Take the short “What's my level?” assessment (it needs a MIDI keyboard) — it finds your level and opens the right exercise.
• Follow the Course — a guided path from the very basics to your first chords and songs.
• Browse the curated exercise sets and pick one that matches what you want to practice.
• Want to learn every chord? Start at the Levels page, a grid of every chord type × inversion that you clear cell by cell.

After a few exercises, your Dashboard starts suggesting what to try next.

Start with the Course. It assumes zero experience: white keys and the musical alphabet, then reading the staff, then your first chords — with a clickable exercise after every few paragraphs.

No keyboard yet? Try the “practice without a piano” exercises on the home page — naming notes and chords on the staff, and ear training.

PianoKitty is a browser app for practicing piano chords, scales, inversions, chord progressions and songs. Connect a MIDI keyboard and every chord you play is graded instantly — correct notes advance the exercise, mistakes show you what to fix.

Every exercise is a link you can share. Set the parameters in Preferences (or take a ready-made set) and practice with a metronome, hearts, streaks and stats.

Yes, all of it. You need no signup and no email. An account is optional and adds cross-device sync and the social features.

No. The app works anonymously and stores your progress in the browser. An account adds progress sync across devices, the social features (friends, teachers, activity feed) and session history on the server.

Yes — the Course is a single guided path: white keys → reading the staff → intervals → your first triads → left hand → songs, with numbered exercises embedded along the way.

For topic-by-topic practice, the exercise sets collect ready-made exercises by subject.

A few starters:

• Single notes on white keys (also inside the Course).
• C major, F major, G major triads in root position.
• Naming notes on the staff — works without a piano.
• The treble-clef and Baby mode sets on the sets page.

Or skip choosing: with a MIDI keyboard, the assessment finds a suitable level for you.

Run the adaptive assessment — it raises and lowers the difficulty as you play and finishes with an exercise matched to you. It grades what you play, so it needs a MIDI keyboard.

The Levels page shows the long-term picture: a grid of every chord type × inversion, painted with your completion and accuracy.

Exercises are parameter combinations — chord types × keys × inversions × hands × tempo × order — which multiplies out to roughly 70 sextillion distinct exercises. The full math is on the numbers page.

Yes. Three activities need no instrument:

• Naming — multiple-choice questions about chords and notes on the staff (answer by clicking or with keys 1–9).
• Ear training — listen and identify what was played.
• Listen and repeat — a melody memory game you play back on the on-screen keyboard.

Piano-graded exercises can also be browsed and heard without an instrument — you just can't be graded until a keyboard is connected.

MIDI is the standard digital language keyboards use to say “this key was pressed, this hard, now released”. Nearly every digital piano and keyboard made in the last decades speaks it, usually over a USB cable. The app listens to those messages to grade what you play — no microphone involved.

MIDI is required only for the graded piano activity — it's how the app hears you. With an acoustic piano you can still:

• practice along with the exercises (the app shows the answer, you play it),
• do all the no-piano activities (naming, ear training),
• use a cheap MIDI keyboard next to your acoustic for the graded drills.

The app does not listen through the microphone.

Any keyboard or digital piano with a USB port (often labeled “to host”) or classic MIDI out plus an interface, one USB cable, and a browser that supports Web MIDI: Chrome, Edge, Opera or Brave. Firefox works too, after it installs a small permission add-on. Safari does not support Web MIDI. PianoKitty itself needs nothing installed.

Any MIDI-capable instrument works — the app doesn't care about the brand. Rough guide:

• 61+ keys is plenty for every exercise here;
• 88 weighted keys if you also pursue classical technique;
• a used entry-level digital piano is a good start.

Open the MIDI diagnostics page: it lists detected devices and shows live events — press a key and you should see it appear immediately.

The plug icon in the app header shows the same status at a glance: gray = no device, green = connected, and it pulses when notes arrive. Click it to jump to the diagnostics, except in a browser without Web MIDI, such as Safari: there the icon is dimmed and does nothing.

Safari doesn't support Web MIDI, so the graded piano activity won't hear your keyboard there. Options:

• on a computer — use Chrome, Edge or Opera (Firefox works too, after it installs a small permission add-on);
• on iPad/iPhone — a browser app from the App Store with Web MIDI built in, such as “MIDIWeb Browser” or “Web MIDI Browser”. We have not tested them with PianoKitty;
• everything else (naming, ear training, browsing) works in Safari normally.

Details and links are on the MIDI page.

Yes, and there is nothing to download from an app store: open PianoKitty in the browser and add it to your home screen. The Mobile app page has the steps for Android (Chrome) and for iPhone and iPad (Safari).

The installed app has its own icon, runs full screen and can send practice reminders; on iPhone and iPad, reminders work only from the installed app. Naming and ear training work on a phone, while graded piano exercises still need a MIDI keyboard.

That's your day streak badge — consecutive days with practice. Green means you've already practiced today (streak safe); it turns orange once you cross your daily minutes target (set in Preferences).

Two other counters look similar but differ: the 🔥 number in the bottom bar is your in-session streak of correct answers, and the hearts belong to the game mode.

Almost every element of the exercise screen is a toggle in Preferences: chord name, answer hints (balls), on-screen keyboard, chord chart, staff vs chord-name notation, fingering, inversion bar…

Fastest ways: keyboard shortcuts (B balls, K keyboard, H hints, F fingering, N notation) or long-press the element itself. In fullscreen the top and bottom bars auto-hide; move the mouse to the screen edge to reveal them.

Press I during an exercise to open the chord-info panel — intervals, scale degrees, fingering and theory for the current chord.

Every chord also has a permanent reference page (e.g. /c/Cmaj for C major) you can search, share or bookmark.

The full list lives at Help → Shortcuts. The ones worth learning first:

• Space reveal the answer, Enter next chord;
• M metronome, G game mode, J jumper game;
• Q/W chromatic key step, A/S circle of fifths;
• ←/→ change inversion, P open Preferences.

M toggles the metronome; the ± buttons (or dragging the BPM number) change tempo. In Preferences you can also set:

• Meter — 4/4, 3/4 or 6/8 strong-beat accent;
• Progressive tempo — the classic “tempo stepping” drill: start slow, and the app raises the tempo automatically after clean repeats, dropping back a step when you slip.

Yes. The hand option (Preferences) grades right, left or both hands — with configurable left-hand roles (same chord, root only, octaves, fifths…).

The keyboard split (/ during an exercise) grades only one side of the keyboard while the other stays free — handy when a teacher plays along, or for one-hand drills on a shared instrument.

Yes — song exercises have transpose controls: a half step, whole step or a fifth up/down. Useful for matching a singer's range or practicing the same song in several keys.

Yes. In Preferences set Voicing to Ninths, and a scale exercise walks the ninth chord built on every degree — the same way the triads and sevenths modes do. It works for major, natural and melodic minor, all seven modes, and the pentascales and tetrachords. Harmonic minor is deliberately left out: three of its degrees need chords the catalog does not carry.

To drill one extension on its own, use the chord-type groups instead: Ninth chords, Eleventh chords, Thirteenth chords, 9ths (♭9) for the two chords a diatonic ninths walk produces, and Altered dominants for 7♭5, 7♭9, 7♯9, 7♯11, 9♭5, 9♯11, 13♯11 and 7♯9♯5. The last two can be voiced as a major triad over a dominant shell: a triad a whole step above the root gives 13♯11, one a major third below it gives 7♯9♯5. The upper structures tutorial shows how.

Yes. In Preferences pick Songs as the subject, type the note names where the chords go (C D E F G), and switch on Single notes — each entry is then graded as one note on its root instead of a full chord. A | between groups marks a bar line.

Quicker still: press Shift+R and play the melody on your MIDI keyboard — the recording lands in exactly this mode.

Leave Single notes off and the same list is drilled as full chords, which is how you practice a specific song. Am.1 Cmaj7 F#m7b5/A works too: a dot sets the inversion, a slash sets the bass note.

A roster that shows what each student practiced between lessons. My teaching lists every student with today's minutes, the week's minutes, exercises in the last 7 days, the day streak, when they last practiced and their top goal — so a lesson starts from the logged practice.

• Goals per student, with a status you both watch move.
• Lessons — a dated log you write during the lesson, shared with the student.
• Homework — any exercise is a link, and a list of them is a lesson's plan.
• Sessions — every practice session, with accuracy per exercise.

Students keep their own accounts and their own progress; you see only what the relationship grants you.

Create it from the student's row — pick the goals it is about, and optionally an exercise list to work through. Then either Start now, or set a time and Start later.

• A lesson booked with Start later invites the student: they get a notification, the lesson appears in their My learning and can be added to their calendar. Start now sends no notification, since you are already together.
• While it runs, both of you see a Now: Lesson with… row on the Dashboard, and the student's open lesson page goes live by itself.
• End lesson closes the window and stamps the duration. A lesson somebody forgot to end closes itself.

A lesson needs at least one goal.

A lesson log holds:

• Your notes, saved as you type.
• The student's own notes, which only they can write.
• Practiced during the lesson — filled in by the app: every exercise played inside the lesson window, with how many times and the average accuracy.
• Links & resources — a video, a score, a tutorial page. The Lesson resource bookmarklet attaches whatever page you are on to the running lesson in one click.
• Goals the lesson was about, and the exercise list you worked through.

Need to show it to a parent who has no account? Copy link creates a read-only page anyone with the link can open — and Disable link turns it off again.

A goal is a name, a description and a status: Planned → In progress → Almost completed → Perfected. Drag to reorder — the top one is the most important, and it shows up beside the student in the roster.

Every change is kept, so a goal's page shows its status history and how long it spent in each state.

Students see their goals at My goals, with who set them.

Every exercise in this app is a URL. Configure it the way you want it practiced — chord types, keys, inversions, tempo, hands — and send the link. Your student opens exactly your setup.

For more than one exercise, make a list and attach it to the lesson; the student works down it and you see what got played.

My learning is your side of it: the lessons shared with you, your goals and their status, and the exercise lists you were given.

When your teacher starts a lesson, a row appears on your Dashboard and your open lesson page turns live by itself — nothing to click. During the lesson you can write your own notes; afterwards the log, with everything practiced, stays there to read.

Only what the relationship grants, and the rules are written out: open People and read Who sees what — detailed stats, weekly summary, activity feed, exercise history, milestone notifications, goals and lessons, row by row for teachers, parents and friends.

Lessons reach you as soon as your teacher creates them, practice detail inside a lesson stays between the two of you, and removing somebody from Friends does not end the teaching relationship.

Yes — a kid account signs in with a login ID the app generates and a password, no email anywhere. A parent creates them under My family (up to five), and the child's practice, streaks and coins are their own.

A teacher can create one too, for a parent they already work with: make it at the lesson, and once the parent accepts, the account moves into their care while you stay on as the teacher. More detail on the Accounts page.

My family lists your children. For a kid account you created, you see what a teacher sees: practice minutes and streaks, detailed stats and exercise history, their goals, and the lessons their teacher shared.

For a teenager with their own account, the same page shows less: a weekly summary, the activity feed, milestones, goals and shared lessons, but no detailed stats or exercise history. Who sees what on People has the full table.

Yes:

• every chord graded the moment you play it, with a MIDI keyboard connected — no waiting for a teacher;
• hearts and level boards in game mode (G), and a streak counter that runs all the time;
• a short confetti burst on every correct answer, and optional cat photos as rewards;
• the Jumper rhythm mini-game (J);
• friends and teachers can see your practice in the activity feed.

Coins reward daily practice. You earn +1 for every day you practice, +1 more when you reach your daily goal, and +1 the first time you complete an exercise — and lose one for every day without practice. The balance and the full history are on Your coins.

Spend them in the pet shop. A cat costs 7 coins, and pets stack into bigger ones: 5 cats make a bear, 3 bears a tiger, and so on up to the unicorn. Selling refunds the full price, so changing your mind costs nothing.

Features that are easy to miss:

• Lists — save exercises into your own named lists (My lists) or use the curated sets;
• Recording — press R, play a song's chords on your MIDI keyboard and press R again to get a Songs exercise; Shift+R records a melody;
• Stats — practice stats with charts and streaks, plus per-chord accuracy on chord stats;
• Smart repetition — the random draw favors chords you miss;
• Keyboard split, song transposition, the scale roulette, the exercise editor and a notepad on the dashboard.

You can connect with friends, teachers, students and family members. The activity feed shows what the people you are connected with have been practicing; your My page collects your links, lists and people. Any exercise is shareable as a plain URL — send it to a friend and they practice exactly your setup.

With a teacher or a parent the connection carries more: goals, lesson logs and practice history, each one a separate permission listed in Who sees what on People.

Teaching implies friendship: when a student accepts a teacher's invitation the two also appear on each other's Friends tab. Removing somebody from Friends leaves the teaching relationship alone — they stay your student.

Yes: a roster with what each student practiced this week, goals with a status history, dated lesson logs written during the lesson and shared with the student, homework as links and lists, and kid accounts that need no email address. Start at My teaching.

It has its own section of this page — see Teachers, students & family above.