AudioTheory Piano Keys
Music
Only for Mac
$6.99
AudioTheory Piano Keys is ultimate piano reference toolkit. View every note you play across a customisable set of interactive diagrams designed to enrich your understanding of music theory.
AudioTheory Piano Keys features...
–An innovative highlighting system to quickly understand how the notes you're playing fit into chords and scales.
–Full MIDI input support. Connect your external MIDI input device to control the on-screen keyboard. Input is supported by real-time audio and visual highlighting with a selection of software instrument presets.
–Exclude notes and never play out of key again. Quickly load a scale from a full library of scale sets.
–Choose the chords for your composition from an extensive library. Or automatically display the chords relevant to the selected scale preset.
–Introducing the scale wheel. A brand-new invention for AudioTheory Piano Keys. The scale preset highlights on a circular diagram, giving a clear visual way to understand how a scale is structured relative to its root note.
–Ear Training exercises to help you understand and identify music by ear.
Plus a new invention that will change the way you visually understand music theory...
Real-time scale highlighting
This is a second row of keyboard notes that sits just above the main display and shows a scale for the note currently being played. This means you can see both the main song scale (loaded to the keyboard) and then the notes also filtered against the scale for the current root note. The perfect tool for improvising, this allows you to quickly identify suitable notes as you are playing.
more Just a small patch today to address the following:
–Selecting Piano Exercises from the nav window dropdown now closes open popups/ inspectors
–Loaded preset name no longer shows in ear training mode
–Fixed a situation where the dropdowns for the scale inspector could show incorrectly
–Fix for B displaying as H when German note name language is selected
–Line style updated for ear training mode
3.0.1 Feb 5
The biggest update yet is here for AudioTheory Piano Keys. It adds the following new features:
Chord Inversions
The double arrow icon below the bottom right of the piano chords was already here, but before it would just cycle the chord up an octave. Now it cycles the chord up one note at a time, so you can see the inverted positions for the chord too.
Chord Inspector
Next to this button is a new info icon. This brings up the chord inspector, where you can find out more about the specific chord in question. Here you can see the chord degrees, the chord type, and the movable do labels alongside a larger representation of the standard chord diagram.
The edit button exists here too, meaning chords can be swapped directly from the inspector, allowing for focused practice on an individual chord as an alternative to the multi-chord views found elsewhere in the application.
Scale Inspector
The same feature, but for scales! Learn more about each scale with the scale degrees, movable do labels, Roman numerals (where applicable) and standard note information all in one place.
Extended Scale Library
The number of scales within the library has been increased substantially. There are new tabs for Jazz, Exotic, and Japanese. In total, 28 new types of scales have been added in.
Plus some more smaller changes and fixes:
–New options for scale playback. Play scales ascending, descending, or both. Scales now only play across a single octave, rather than just continuing for the full length of the keyboard.
–Theoretical chords are now properly supported in the main piano view, and will load as contextually appropriate with the selected scale.
–Improved chord dragging within the main application view. Now you can diagonally drag chords at greater speeds.
–The 'Mode' and 'Window' dropdowns in the nav has been consolidated into a single 'Window' option. This simplifies navigation by combining the different views into one place, and options to access the chord and scale inspectors have been added here too. This is now where the Piano Training Exercises can be found.
–The Tick icons have been restored – this indicates when all the correct notes in a chord are being played on the main Keyboard.
–Movable Do can now display for chords (using sharps and flats) in cases where one or more of the notes are not in the current scale. There are still instances where no applicable reference is possible (this is the fun of music theory), and these are noted as such.
–The position of the play button has been standardised between chords and scales.
–Various small design and colour changes have been made across the different themes.
–Auto-loading chords with scales has been streamlined a bit. Pentatonic scales now just load the standard set of major chords. Melodic scales no longer auto-load chords, and a message now displays at the top of screen when a set of chords are loaded on scale change.
–German note names have been added as an option within the application settings. When applied, B will display as H and B flat will display as B.
–The cycle chord button now rotates, just like in AudioTheory Guitars!
3.0.0 Jan 29
Unity upgrade to fix security issue CVE-2025-59489
2.3.1 10/08/2025
AudioTheory Piano Keys 2.3.0 includes the following:
–A new dropdown in the application options that lets you manually configure the default values for sharps and flats
–Scale highlighting support for theoretical scales
–The note selector now references the sharp/ flat state of accidentals when indicating a scale match
–Clicking on a sharp/flat name in the chord library no longer changes it globally. The behaviour is now standardised with the scale library.
–Fixed an issue with the scale type label not displaying correctly on certain scale sets
–Dual scale highlighting now matches the sharp/ flat display of the root note
2.3.0 09/18/2025
Just a small update to fix a couple of minor display issues, including a situation where custom colours would inadvertently default to light blue for all notes apart from C.
2.2.1 04/01/2025
Revised keyboard design – the on-screen piano has been adjusted to match a real piano with greater accuracy.
New depth effect – black keys now look like they sit above the white keys (also to help match the look of a real piano). This can be turned off in the settings if you prefer a flat, more abstract look.
Custom colours for the black keys – It's now possible to set unique custom colours for the black keys. The default option is still for the black keys to automatically match the natural note colours, however this can be changed using a new dropdown in the settings. If the black keys display mode is changed over to use custom colours then you'll see an additional set of black key notes for which individual colours can be set.
Export Chord progressions as MIDI and import them as 'Chord packs' into your DAW. Select the new MIDI toolbar option, 'Export Chords to MIDI' and specify a location for the file to be saved. This will export all visible chords in the main application view, one bar for each, in sequence, ready for use in other applications.
2.2.0 02/28/2025
A brand new update arrives for AudioTheory Piano Keys. It includes the following:
Added
–Harmonic and melodic minor scales have been added to the scale library
–Chromatic scale wheel – new options for the scale wheel when a scale preset is not loaded
–New relative labelling options. Relative labels for dual scale highlighting and the scale wheel can match the main note language, or always display as either Roman numerals or degrees
Changed
Revised default chords
Chords are now added to the main view already in 'edit' mode
–Solfege standardisation – all notes now use Do Re Mi for fixed do
–Standardisation of default sharp/ flat display across all scale types
–B now displays as C flat when appropriate in scales (e.g. G flat major)
–Adjusted position of keyboard input overlay on black keys
–The top section of the app is now offset on 16:10 screens to better fit the screen space
–Slight offset for piano keys when they are viewed without the scale wheel so that they better fit the screen space
Fixed
–Relative Roman numerals review to ensure consistent sharp/ flat information across all scales
–Hotkeys for swapping note language (buttons 1 – 4) now also works when viewing scale and chord sheets
–User guide button now correctly links to the Piano Keys specific page
–Fixed an issue where the dropdowns under chords would not display if the scale is changed whilst the padlock is unlocked
–Fixed an issue where note labels would not display correctly in the chord-match ear training mode when using fixed do
–Fixed an issue where pentatonic and blues dual-scale name labels would display incorrectly
–Fixed an issue where the answer octave could display incorrectly in note match when multiple octaves where in use
–Fixed an issue where the relative notes on the scale wheel would not display correctly if removing a scale preset
–Fixed an issue where under some circumstances piano chords would not correctly save and load between sessions
2.1.0 01/27/2025
AudioTheory Piano Keys 2.0.2 includes the following changes:
–Note selector scale label is now appended with an asterisk when modified. This is to support some changes made in the last update to how relative note names display, and makes it clear what scale these labels are in reference to when the scale is modified.
–Fixed an issue where the current note highlighting colours would inadvertently be reset
–Fixed an issue where one of the F# keys would also play an octave up when using the full keyboard overlay
3,486
2.0.2 11/19/2024
AudioTheory Piano Keys version 2.0.1 includes the following changes:
–An extra note colour sets can now be loaded directly from the options popup
–Custom sharp and flat states now save between sessions (where as previously it was only the scale as a whole that would save)
–A message has been added to the options poppet to clarify that the buttons 1–4 can be used to swap the note display language from the main application view
–A message also appears on the main display when swapping note language via hotkey, just to clarify what change has been made
–Hotkeys now also respond to the keyboard number pad
–Fixed an issue with certain pentatonic scales not highlighting correctly
–A couple of corrections have been made to how notes display when using Solfege
–Movable do positions now display correctly in training modes
2.0.1 11/11/2024
The biggest update to AudioTheory Piano Keys yet. Version 2.0 adds in the following:
Quick Select Chord Types
Previously, loading a new chord required finding and selecting it within the chord library. It's still possible to do this, but now there's also a dropdown that you can use to swap chord type much quicker. If you already know what cord you're after – this is a simpler and faster way to load it.
Locked & Unlocked mode
The application can now be toggled between an unlocked 'edit' mode and a locked 'view' mode the padlock icon in the top right. As well as the dropdown for selecting the chord type, numerous existing features have been moved into the 'edit' view, and you can now easily show or hide these as required.
New menu bar
To support the changes above, a new menu bar has been added and numerous options now live here. It's where you can now find the chord and scales libraries, as well as ear training mode.
Light theme
A brand-new look is here in the form of the light theme. This mode is perfect if you want to print out a physical copy of your diagrams.
Colour wheel
The options screen has been rebuilt as a larger popup. It now includes a colour wheel so you can quickly change the per-note colours. Now you can easily update the colours at runtime using the new selector. There's also the option to set a colour by hex value, and a set of alternative colours that can be loaded at the press of a button.
Relative note display updates
A few changes have been made to improve how the application handles relative note name formats (Degrees, Roman numerals and movable do). These now display relative to the last selected scale, rather than the current scale. This has the effect of allowing you to subtract notes from the scale and still see the relative intervals for what's left. E.g. if you were to start out with C major you could then remove D, F, A and B to be left with C, E and G, which would be labelled as 1, 3 and 5 respectively.
To further support this, auto scale matching now only checks the current scale set group, as well as and the regular major and minor scales. This prevents accidentally swapping to the pentatonic scale of another key (e.g. G A B D E can be viewed as a subsection of C major, and won't automatically swap to G major pentatonic in this situation).
And the rest...
There's a whole load of bug fixes and other things that have made it into this update too:
–Revised application colours and fonts for a modern new look
–Real-Time Scale Highlighting now only updates when the pressed note is enabled in the note selector (i.e. it doesn't update if the key you're pressing is greyed out)
–The settings now include an option to offset the octave at which piano chords are played at/ highlighted
–The settings now include an option to turn off input highlighting across the piano chord set in the main application view
–The note selector now highlights any note added in using the colour it will display as
–The loaded preset name is now an input field that can be edited directly
–Fixed Do: Option to set Si or Ti as the 7th note in the scale
–Movable Do: bugs fixed and new option to set minor scale as 'La-based' or 'Do-based'
–The 'clear highlighting' delay time for the 'high' setting has been increased from 1 second to 2 seconds
–You can now click on the scale name in the bottom left to swap between the major and relative minor scales.
–'Interval' label corrected to 'Degrees'
–Splash screen has been removed
–Mode labels now correctly update to major or minor
–Engine upgrade
–Chords now correctly auto load when swapping between major scales
–Scale name label is now in sync with sharp/ flat display
–Bug fixes for piano training modes
–Hotkeys can no longer be pressed when an input field is active
–Black key highlighting is now consistent between mini-keyboards and the main keyboard
2.0.0 11/04/2024
AudioTheory Piano Keys version 1.5.0 adds in the ability to change the application colours.
1.5.0 04/05/2024
A small update to AudioTheory Piano Keys is here. This version includes:
• Fix for Roman numerals on scale wheel when no scale was selected
• Tick icon now only shows when chord is played from user input (and not from button press)
• Fix for tick icon not showing the first time a chord was played
• Engine upgrade
1.4.3 10/05/2023
A small update to AudioTheory Piano Keys arrives today. This includes the following changes:
–Sharp and flat notes for pentatonic and blues scales now correctly display relative to the corresponding major scale
–Fixed a bug with the note match mini game not correctly working with the scale note selector
–Engine upgrade
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1.4.2 02/28/2023
A small patch arrives for AudioTheory Piano Keys. Version 1.4.1 includes the following changes:
–Fix for scale intervals not displaying correctly
–Fix for highlighting colour obscuring note names on scale
–Logo no longer vanishes on M1 MacBook when fullscreen mode is active
–File browser support now working on M1 Macs
–Bug fix for modal scales not saving between sessions
–Fix for diminished scales not loading correctly from the scale library
–Engine upgrade
1.4.1 01/17/2022
AudioTheory Piano Keys version 1.4.0 adds in support for multiple keyboard sizes all the way up to a full size 88 key piano.
1.4.0 11/21/2021
AudioTheory Piano Keys version 1.3.0 adds in a series of performance enhancements and optimisations.
1.3.0 10/26/2021
This new version of AudioTheory Piano Keys includes a series of optimisation to improve MIDI input, including faster response times and note playback velocity.
1.2.0 10/15/2021
AudioTheory Piano Keys version 1.1.0 adds in the following:
–New MIDI input system for faster highlighting times
–Uncompressed audio data for faster audio playback times
–The scale wheel now plays using the selected instrument preset
–A loaded preset name hides on the wheel-only view
–Fixed a scenario where note names would not update on application load
–Fix for Real-time Scale Highlighting 'auto' mode not correctly refreshing when chords were not being automatically loaded with a scale preset
–Adjusted the scale highlighting process to resolve a slight flicker if rapid note changes were made
–Fixed a couple of issues with the diminished scales
–Scale library now correctly refreshes for all tab combinations
–Link to User Guide added to application settings
–Quit button added to application settings
–Engine upgrade
–Fix for text overlap when the options cog was open during certain points in the Ear Training exercises
1.1.0 10/10/2021
AudioTheory Piano Keys 1.0 – this is the launch day release of AudioTheory Piano Keys.
1.0.0 09/24/2021
Just a small patch today to address the following:
–Selecting Piano Exercises from the nav window dropdown now closes open popups/ inspectors
–Loaded preset name no longer shows in ear training mode
–Fixed a situation where the dropdowns for the scale inspector could show incorrectly
–Fix for B displaying as H when German note name language is selected
–Line style updated for ear training mode
more Version 3.0.1 Feb 5
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