parker peterson

Tools we’ve made.

Free, in your browser, nothing to install

Everything interactive on this site, in one list — 35 of them at the moment, and more coming.

Almost all of it runs in a browser tab, with nothing to install and nothing to buy: the fingering charts, the theory games, the tuner, the metronome, the drones and the first songs all need no account at all. A few things do ask for a free one — the timed fingering game, because a round saves its times to your progress, and anything that stores your work or prints a PDF. That's the only reason any of it sits behind a sign-in.

These started as things I wanted for my own students, and there was no reason to keep them to myself. If one of them is useful to you, take it. If there's one you wish existed, I'd like to hear about it.

Interactive fingering charts

One per woodwind, covering the instrument's full written range. Step up or down a note at a time, or jump to a random one, and the diagram shows the keys to hold down. Every chart plays the pitch too, and transposes for whichever horn in the family you play — so a written note on a B♭ clarinet or an alto saxophone sounds at the right concert pitch without you doing the arithmetic.

Learn The Keys — the fingering game

A timed drill built on the same diagrams. A note appears on the staff and you press its keys on the instrument itself, then hit done — a stopwatch runs on every note. Five levels widen from the first five notes out to the full range, and the results screen shows your total time, your accuracy, your average per note, and which notes still need work. Alternate fingerings count as correct. You can browse the levels freely; starting one asks for a free account, because a round saves its times to your progress.

First songs

A hundred original melodies — twenty-five per instrument, five levels of five — written for this site rather than borrowed. Each one names in a sentence what it's teaching, shows its key, range and rhythms, and plays back on whichever horn in the family you play. Reading and playing them needs no account; printing one as a part, saving it, or opening it in the compose studio asks for a free one.

Music theory games

Six drills you can point at your own instrument. Every one lets you pick the clef, so a bassoonist practices in bass and a violist in alto, and every one grades the spelling that's actually on the page — B♭ and A♭ are different answers even though they're the same key.

Practice tools

The things you'd otherwise open an app for. All of them run in the browser tab, with nothing to install and no account.

Writing music

A staff you can write on, and a band to play it back. Both export files you keep — nothing is locked in.

For teachers

The half of the site built for the person at the front of the room. Some of these open as soon as you make an account; the ones that touch a student roster unlock once your teacher application is approved, because they show real students' names and scores.