Free browser tool Beta
Your sheet music, animated on your video
Load a video of yourself playing, add your score, and tap along once so the tool learns your timing. It then draws the notes onto your video, note by note, exactly in time with your playing. At the end you download a normal MP4 file.
Bring two files
A video of you playing, and your piece as a MusicXML file. Not sure what that is? The guide below explains it.
Tap the beat
Play your video and tap along, like tapping your foot to the music. That is how the tool learns your exact timing.
Download the result
The notes appear on your video in sync with your playing. You get an MP4 you can post anywhere.
First time here? Read the short guide
What you need
- A video of you playing. Any normal video file works (MP4, MOV and similar). A phone recording is fine.
- Your piece as a MusicXML file. That is a file format for sheet music, ending in .mxl, .musicxml or .xml. A PDF or a photo of your sheet music will not work here, because those are only pictures. The tool needs the actual notes.
How to get a MusicXML file
Every common notation app can export one: MuseScore, Sibelius, Finale, Dorico, flat.io. In MuseScore (which is free) open your piece, click File, then Export, choose MusicXML and save. For many well known pieces you can also find ready made files in the MuseScore community.
The whole process in one paragraph
Load your score in step 1 and check the preview. Load your video in step 2. In step 3 press Start and tap the beat while your video plays, then press Stop. Step 4 shows you the animation on its own so you can check the timing. In step 5 the tool renders your finished video with the animated notes on top. Download it and you are done.
Three tips before you start
- Tap with your playing, not with an imaginary metronome. If you slow down in the video, your taps should slow down too. That is exactly how the tool follows you.
- Your first tap matters most. It has to land on the first note of the part you chose in step 1.
- Start small. Try just a few bars first (step 1 lets you pick a bar range). You will see a result much faster.
Every option, explained
In step 1: the score
- Hide these markings: tempo words, dynamics, hairpins and pedal marks can clutter a small animation. Ticking a box removes that type of marking from the video. Your file is not changed.
- Hands: for piano scores with two staves you can animate only the right hand (upper staff) or only the left hand (lower staff). Useful for practice videos about one hand.
- Bar range: animate the whole piece or only bars X to Y. Leave both fields empty for the whole piece.
- Bars per line: the animation shows one line of music at a time. Fewer bars per line means bigger, easier to read notes in the video. You can set all lines at once or adjust each line individually next to its preview.
In step 3: the taps
- How much music is one tap: tell the tool what one of your taps was worth. Tapping every count in 4/4 time means a quarter note. Tapping twice per bar in 6/8 means a dotted quarter note. Tapping once per bar in 3/4 means a dotted half note.
- My video does not start right on the first note: pressing Start counts as your first tap. If your video has a lead in before the music begins, tick this box, then tap once exactly on the first note and keep tapping from there.
In step 5: the finished video
- Look of the sheet music: black notes on a white card, white notes on a black card, or only the notes themselves in any color, with no card behind them.
- Text on the video: an optional line of text, for example „Left hand“ or the name of the piece. It appears inside the yellow frame while the animation is running. You choose its color and size.
- Output size: smaller output renders much faster. 1280 pixels wide is plenty for TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.
Your sheet music
Drop your score below. The tool reads it and shows you a preview right away.
Where do I get a MusicXML file?
MusicXML is the format notation apps use to exchange sheet music. In the free app MuseScore: open your piece, click File, then Export, pick MusicXML and save. Sibelius, Finale, Dorico and flat.io can export it too. A PDF or a photo does not work, because it is only a picture. The tool needs the actual notes.
Score options
Three settings, one button. Nothing here changes the preview until you click Apply at the bottom of this card.
Hide these markings
Hands
For piano scores with two staves. Handy when the video is about one hand only.
Bar range
Animate the whole piece or only a part of it. Leave both fields empty for the whole piece.
Preview and line layout
Your piece, split into lines exactly as the video will show them: one line of music at a time. Use the small number next to a line to choose how many bars it holds. Fewer bars per line means bigger notes in the video.
Want a note or a passage to stand out in its own color? Click „Create group“, click the notes below, then „Done“ and pick a color. Chords are split into their individual notes, so you can pick out just the melody note instead of the whole chord. Click a group above any time to change its color or which notes belong to it.
Your video
Drop the video of you playing. It stays on your computer and is only used to build your finished video. Once it is loaded you also decide here how the sheet music should look and which text goes on the video, and you see both directly on the frames.
Look of the sheet music
Text on the video (optional)
The fonts come from your own computer, so the yellow frame shows exactly what the finished video will get.
Tap the beat
This is how the tool learns your timing. Press Start and your video begins to play. Tap on every beat, like tapping your foot to the music. Press Stop when your section is done.
How much music is one tap?
Tapping every count in 4/4 time means a quarter note. Tapping twice per bar in 6/8 means a dotted quarter note. Tapping once per bar in 3/4 means a dotted half note.
Load a saved taps file instead
Only needed if you exported taps as a .json file earlier. The tapper above fills this in by itself.
Check the animationRecommended
This renders the animation by itself, without your video, so you can check that your taps and your score line up. You can skip straight to step 5, but this check is much faster than rendering the full video twice.
The very first run downloads the video encoder (about 30 MB), that only happens once. Timing looks off? Record your taps again in step 3, then generate again.
Your finished video
The final step puts the animated sheet music onto your full video, using the frames and the look you set in step 2. The right moment is found automatically from your taps, nothing needs lining up by hand.
Timing of the sheet music
The notes appear slightly before they are played, which reads better than landing exactly on the beat. This only affects the finished video, not the animation on its own.
Output size
Smaller renders much faster. 1280 is plenty for TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.
This is the slow part. A one minute video can take a few minutes to render. Keep this tab open and let it work.
Status
What the tool is doing behind the scenes. If something fails, the reason shows up here.
Questions
Is my video uploaded somewhere?
No. The whole tool runs inside your browser using WebAssembly. Your video and your score are processed on your own computer and never sent to a server. The page only downloads its software parts, like the notation engine and the video encoder, from public servers the first time it needs them.
Why is the first render slow?
The first render in a session loads the video encoder, about 30 MB. Later renders in the same session skip that. Rendering itself also simply takes time: your browser is doing real video encoding, frame by frame.
The preview does not look like my printed score
Different apps lay out sheet music differently, so line breaks and spacing will not match your print edition. That is normal and does not matter here: the notes and their timing are what ends up in the animation.
The animation does not match my playing
Three usual causes, all fixed in step 3:
- The „one tap equals“ setting does not match how you tapped.
- Your first tap did not land on the first note of your chosen bars. If your video starts before the music, tick the box for that.
- The taps were uneven. Reset and tap again, it only takes as long as the piece itself.
My score file will not load
Make sure the file ends in .mxl, .musicxml or .xml. If it still fails, open the piece in MuseScore and export it again as MusicXML, that fixes most files. The Status box above shows the exact error message.
Does this work on a phone or tablet?
It can, but rendering video is heavy work. A computer with a current version of Chrome, Edge or Firefox is the comfortable way to use this.
Which instruments does it support?
Anything you can export as MusicXML: piano, strings, winds, voice and more. The right hand and left hand options are meant for piano scores with two staves.
What is this tool part of?
It is a free side project by the developer of MyRepertoire, an app for keeping the pieces you have learned alive instead of forgetting them. If this tool is useful to you, the app might be too.
I found a bug, or something does not work
This tool is in beta, so honest reports help a lot. Email support@myrepertoire.de and describe what you did, ideally with the message from the Status box above.