Sheet music maker

This sheet music maker writes real notation while you play. Press keys on the piano below or on a MIDI keyboard, type note letters, or click the staff, and each note lands in place with bar lines, ties and rests drawn for you. Press Play to hear it, then print it or download it as a PDF, a picture, a MIDI file or MusicXML. It is free, needs no account, and your score stays in this browser.

It opens on the first phrase of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" so you can hear how it works. Press New score to start your own. Undo brings the last score back if you change your mind.

Three ways to enter notes

Play the piano keys. Choose a note value, then press a key on the keyboard below the score. The note is written at the blue line and you hear it as you play. A black key is spelled to suit the key signature: in F major, the black key between A and B is written B♭, and in G major the one above F is F♯. Connect a MIDI keyboard to write from a real instrument; keys you press together become one chord.

Type the letters. Type A to G on your computer keyboard. Each note goes in the octave closest to the note before it, so a melody moves naturally. The first note sits between middle C and the B above it on a treble staff, or an octave lower on a bass staff. Hold Shift with a letter to add that note to the last one as a chord.

Click the staff. With a mouse, a faint note shows where a click will write, line by line and space by space. Click it to add a note there. On a touch screen, tapping the staff moves the blue line instead, so a scroll never adds a note by accident.

Note values, rests, dots and ties

The buttons under the score set the value of the next note: whole, half, quarter, eighth or sixteenth. Dot makes it half as long again. Rest writes a silence of that value. Select a note first and the same buttons change that note instead.

You never have to count bars. A note that is longer than the space left in a bar carries over into the next bar with a tie, and the last bar is filled with rests. Tie joins a note to the next note with the same keys, so they sound as one long note. When the blue line comes after the note, Tie also writes that next note for you.

The number keys follow the same order as MuseScore's shortcuts, so they carry over if you move on to desktop notation software.

Write for both hands

Choose Piano as the staff to get a treble staff for the right hand and a bass staff for the left, joined by a brace. Use the Treble and Bass buttons, or click a staff, to choose where new notes go. Each hand has its own rhythm, so a left hand can hold a whole note while the right hand plays quarter notes. Notes that start together line up above one another. Each staff holds one line of notes and chords at a time.

If you are new to reading the two clefs, the lesson on how to read sheet music explains the lines, spaces and note values with the same notation.

Change the key, time and tempo

The key signature menu covers every major and minor key up to seven sharps or flats. Changing it keeps your notes' pitches, so a note that leaves the new key gains its own sharp, flat or natural. The time signature menu redraws the bar lines around the same notes: 4/4, 3/4, 2/4, 2/2, 5/4, 6/8, 9/8, 12/8 and 3/8. Tempo sets the speed of playback and of the MIDI file in quarter notes per minute. Tick Note names to print the letter under every note, as the song sheets on this site do.

Save, share and download

Your score is saved in this browser as you work, and it is back when you return. Copy link puts the whole score in a link you can send to someone; it opens the same score in their browser, and nothing is uploaded. Print sends just the music to your printer. Download offers five files:

• PDF: printable pages with your title and composer name, Letter or A4.
• PNG image: one picture of the whole score, for a message or a worksheet.
• SVG: the same picture as scalable vector graphics, sharp at any size.
• MIDI: the notes, tempo, key and time signature for music software, one track per hand.
• MusicXML: the notation itself, which MuseScore, Sibelius and Dorico can open for further editing.

What it does not do

This is a quick way to write melodies, chords and simple piano parts. It does not have lyrics, dynamics, slurs, triplets, repeat signs or a second independent voice on one staff. It cannot turn an audio recording or a photo into notes, and it does not open files. For a longer arrangement, download MusicXML and continue in a full notation program.

Need something to write over? The chord progression generator plays chord sequences in any key, and the metronome keeps time while you play your new piece.