Virtual Piano

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Online Piano

Welcome to the GuitarSix.com Virtual Piano where you can use your keyboard or mouse to play piano online and view thousands of piano chord charts and scale charts for free. FLASH player is not required. For best results with sound, use a Desktop computer and a modern web browser with JavaScript enabled.

Learn Piano

You can use the Virtual Piano to view and memorize chords and scales on the keyboard. Select from the options below to view custom chord and scale charts.

Piano Chords

This section allows you to view the tones that make up many types of piano chords and arpeggios. The root note of each chord will be displayed as a red dot on top of the piano keys. Chord fingering is not set in stone and usually boils down to what is most comfortable to you. See this and scale fingering below.

Instructions: Select a piano chord type then a letter name.

Piano Scales

Choose a piano scale from the list below by selecting a key letter name under each of the scale names. The root note of the scale in each key will show as a red dot with a letter on the piano keys.

How To Play The Piano

Virtual Piano is best used on PC based (non Apple) laptops and desktop computers in Chrome or Firefox web browsers. Ideally you would want to use Chrome and connect a MIDI USB keyboard. Connecting a USB keyboard makes playing the Virtual Piano more like a real keyboard experience. You can get a USB midi controller keyboard HERE Which is an affiliate link (that means if you buy through this link I might make a small profit which definitely helps me pay for running this site and keeping it free).

Control the keyboard using a mouse, finger tap, QWERTY keyboard, USB Midi keyboard.

When using a mouse you can mark keys by first clicking then dragging off of the key.

Tapping the keyboard on devices that support multi touch screens allows you to play notes simultaneously which is great for playing chords!

Changing keyboard sounds

To change the way the keyboard sounds, press the voice select icon to and choose a voice patch. In order to use new voice sound patches, you must have cookies enabled in your browser (most people do).

Piano notes and keys

The musical notes on the piano keyboard are easy to find because the layout of the keys tells you where they are. The keyboard layout has a repeating pattern that consists of two black keys followed by a group of two white keys and then a group of 3 black keys. All the white keys are natural notes and the black keys are the sharps and flats. A C note is always the first white key just behind the two black keys.

How to read piano scale fingering

The following is how to read fingerings for scales that show commonly suggested fingerings.

The fingers of the left and right hands are numbered like:

On either hand 1= thumb | 2 = index finger | 3 middle finger | 4 = ring finger | 5 = pinky finger

So when you see a fingering like RH 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5, the first number at the very left means start with that finger at the root (red) note of the scale.

Finger movement tips for scales

Right hand - When ascending in a scale (moving up / to the right) with the right hand, the thumb moves into position under the rest of the fingers. When descending (going from right to left) the fingers move over the thumb.

Left hand - The movement in the left hand is the opposite of the right hand. When ascending in a scale (moving up / to the right) with the left hand, the fingers pass over the the thumb and when descending (going from right to left) the thumb moves under the fingers.

Thumbs rarely play black notes.

Piano Resources

Who invented the piano?

Have you ever wondered who invented the piano? Well, Bartolomeo Cristofori is credited as being the inventor of the piano. Researching the things that this guy did in order to build a piano inspired me to make this. Virtual Piano - a free piano accessible to anyyone with a computer!

Piano Notes - this diagram shows the relationship between piano notes, the guitar fretboard and music staff.
Piano scales - scale diagrams for piano, more added regularly.
Piano Chords - free printable piano chord charts.

About the piano

On mobile, this app is more of a novelty / toy than anything else. The sound will probably only work with Android devices using Chrome or Firefox browsers.

Why don't sounds work in my browser?

The piano was programmed to use the open web. Unfortunately some web browsers do not support the open web and disallow the simultaneous loading of the multiple sounds needed to play by the piano. This is usually the case with mobile browsers. The solution is to use a Desktop or laptop computer running Windows or Linux with an up to date modern browser.

More to come

It is my hope that Virtual Piano will actually help you learn how to play piano. So in the near future I will be adding many more features some of which are:

* Scale fingerings - I'll be adding in fingerings for the most common scales.

* 4 voice polyphonic robot player
* Learning songs/lesson demos from the piano robot player

There is more to come so be sure to tell your friends and check back often for new features and surprises.