- Make
- Melody
Melody
Play someone a tune and send it as a link. A grand piano in your browser, played with a finger, the mouse or your computer keys, and a song to follow note by note if you have never played. They press play and hear it, keys lighting as it goes.
- 61 keys of a real grand piano
- 8 songs to follow
- Free, no microphone, no app
A tune, from your fingers to theirs
The studio is one page: the piano across the top, the take drawn above it as you play, and what they will see beside it.
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Pick a song, or play your own
Choose one of eight songs and the next key lights up; play it and the one after lights. Or ignore the songs and play whatever you like.
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Record a take
Press Record and play. Listen back, undo, try again until it is the one. Up to three minutes, and the pedal works.
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Send the link
You get a private gift link to text or email. They press play on any phone or computer, and can save it as a sound file to keep.
Follow a song
Choose where to begin
Pick a song to open the studio with its first key lit, or start with the piano and play freely.
- Happy Birthday The one everyone knows, slow enough to get right first time. Follow this song
- Twinkle, Twinkle Six notes, played gently. The first song most people learn. Follow this song
- Ode to Joy Beethoven’s tune, almost all on neighbouring keys. Follow this song
- Für Elise The famous opening, rocking between two keys. Follow this song
- Brahms’ Lullaby For a new baby, or anyone who needs to sleep. Follow this song
- Jingle Bells The chorus, for a card that plays. Follow this song
- Silent Night Slow and quiet, for the night before. Follow this song
- Auld Lang Syne For the year turning over, and old friends. Follow this song
Made to be kind
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No microphone, ever
The studio keeps which keys you pressed and when, not sound from your room. Nothing asks for the microphone, and a cough in the middle does not end up in the gift.
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Nothing to install
The gift plays in any browser. The person you send it to needs no app and no account.
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The preview says only who it is for
A pasted link shows the title, who it is for and who played it. The tune and your note are for the page itself. Gift pages are kept out of search engines.
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A real piano
The sound is the Salamander Grand Piano, a Yamaha C5 recorded by Alexander Holm and shared under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. The songs are all long out of copyright.
Questions
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What is Melody?
A piano in your browser. Play something, record it, and send it to someone as a link. They open it like a letter and press play, and they hear what you played, every note as you played it.
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Do I need to know how to play?
No. Pick a song and the next key to press lights up, one note at a time, so Happy Birthday or Twinkle, Twinkle comes out right on the first go. You can also play freely and send whatever you made up.
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What can I play it with?
The mouse, a finger on a phone or tablet, the computer keyboard (A to L are the white keys, W E T Y U O P the black ones, Z and X move an octave, the space bar is the pedal), or a MIDI keyboard plugged into a browser that supports it.
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Does it use my microphone?
No. Melody records which keys you pressed and when, not sound. Nothing in the room is heard or sent, and the tune plays back on the same piano at the other end.
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Can I keep a copy as a sound file?
Yes. Download the tune as a WAV file from the studio, and whoever you send it to can download it from the gift page too. The file is made in your browser.
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Does the person I send it to need an app or an account?
No. The link opens in any browser. They open the envelope, press play, and watch the notes go by as they sound.
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Where does the piano sound come from?
The Salamander Grand Piano, a Yamaha C5 recorded by Alexander Holm and shared under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. The songs to follow are all old enough to be free for anyone to play.
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How long can a tune be?
Up to three minutes, or two thousand notes. Long enough for a song, short enough to listen to twice.
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Is it free?
Yes, and you can make and send a tune without an account. Signing in keeps your draft and your sent tunes in one place, and lets HourLife email the link on a day you pick.
Someone would love to hear it
Thirty seconds of a song you half know is plenty, and it costs nothing to send.
Keep this going in the app.
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