From a link to your first piece, in one sitting

OpenVoicing is a web app. You do not download it, install it, or create an account. You open a web page and start playing.

From the OpenVoicing home page, click Launch the app (top right, and again in the hero). That opens the app at the /app/ address. If someone sent you a direct link to the app, or to a specific piece, just open that link. The app is the same either way.

There is no sign-up wall, no trial, and no paywall between you and the app. Click the link and you are in.

A few practical notes

• Any modern browser works. OpenVoicing is built and tested for current versions of Safari, Chrome, and Firefox, on desktop and on tablets and phones. The recordings that pieces play are standard MP3 audio, which is exactly why they play in Safari as well as Chrome and Firefox. You do not need a plugin.
• The first visit does a little loading, then it is quick. The app fetches a sound library (the instrument sounds used to play notation back to you) the first time you press play. Your browser caches it, so later visits are faster. If your connection is slow, give that first playback a couple of seconds.
• A desktop or laptop is the most comfortable place to edit. You can view, play, and practice happily on a phone or tablet. Note input and detailed editing are easier with a real keyboard, because so much of the editor is driven by single keystrokes.
• You can bookmark the app. Because your work is saved right in the browser, returning to the same bookmark on the same browser brings your last piece back exactly where you left it.

The short version

1. Open the OpenVoicing home page.
2. Click Launch the app (top right or in the hero).
3. Wait a moment on the very first playback while the sound library loads.
4. Optionally bookmark the app so you can return to your work later.

The first time you open the app, you do not stare at a blank page. A real, finished piece is already loaded so you can try everything immediately: Bach's Invention No. 8, with its notation lined up to an audio recording.

That demo is deliberate. It is a complete example of what OpenVoicing does, so you can learn by pressing buttons rather than by reading. Press the spacebar (or click Play) and watch: the app highlights the note that is sounding and scrolls the score to follow along. Drop the speed and the music slows down while every note stays at its correct pitch. Because the demo has a recording attached, you can also hear the real performance follow the notation.

The Welcome panel: three things you can do

Alongside the demo, a short Welcome panel introduces the three things you can do with any piece:

• Play it at any tempo, slowing down without changing pitch.
• Practice it, looping a passage or playing along with a recording or a YouTube video while the notation follows.
• Edit it, changing the notes yourself.

The welcome panel gives you three ways to move on:

1. Explore the demo dismisses the panel and leaves the Invention loaded so you can experiment.
2. Load a file opens the file picker so you can bring in your own music right away.
3. Start a new score clears the way to a blank piece.

One important detail: the demo only greets you on a truly fresh start. If you have used OpenVoicing before on this browser, the app reopens the piece you were last working on, right where you left it, instead of the demo. That is autosave doing its job, covered further down.

OpenVoicing keeps its surface calm by only showing the controls you need for what you are doing right now. You choose that with two controls near the top right: a Listen / Practice toggle, and a separate Edit switch. Together they give you three ways of working.

Listen: a clean player for viewing and playing

This is the quiet default. You get the score, a play button, and a speed control, and not much else. Use Listen when you just want to read a piece, play it through, or hand a clean view to someone else (for example on a music stand or a shared screen). The tooltip on this mode says it plainly: "Just view and play."

Practice: the tools you reach for while learning

Switch the toggle to Practice and the practice aids appear. This is where you:

• Slow a passage down without changing pitch, in 5 percent steps, or press h to jump straight to half speed.
• Loop a section so it repeats while you drill it. You can drag across the notes you want, or set the loop live with [ and ] during playback.
• Turn on a count-in and a metronome so you can come in on time and keep time.
• Open the Recording & sync panel to line a real audio recording, or a YouTube video, up with the score so playback follows the notation. You can then loop and slow the real performance, not just the computer playback.

Use Practice mode for the actual work of learning music. Its tooltip: "Practice, sync and record tools."

Edit: change the notes yourself

Edit is a separate switch (top right) because it changes what clicks and keystrokes do. Turn it on and the editing toolbar appears: click a note to select it, or press N to enter note-input mode where typing pitches places notes and moves you along. Type A through G for pitch and 1 2 4 8 6 3 for note lengths, and use the toolbar for accidentals, ties, dynamics, and the piece's title, tempo, key, and time signature. Use Edit mode when you are correcting an imported score, transcribing, or writing something new. Turn it back off to return to a clean playing view.

The demo is there to explore, but the point is to work on your own music. OpenVoicing opens the two formats most scores travel in, plus its own bundle format.

What you can open

• MusicXML, the standard interchange format that almost every notation program can export. OpenVoicing accepts .musicxml, .xml, and the compressed .mxl variant.
• Guitar Pro files: .gp, .gp3, .gp4, .gp5, and .gpx.
• OpenVoicing bundles (.ovb), a self-contained file that carries a score together with its recording and sync map. Bundles are how finished pieces are shared; you open one the same way, and it arrives complete with its audio and alignment already in place.

To open a score file

1. Open the File menu (top left of the app).
2. Choose Open score file and pick a MusicXML or Guitar Pro file from your computer.
3. The score loads and engraves. Press play to hear it, or switch to Practice or Edit to work on it.

To open a shared piece complete with its recording, use File > Open bundle and pick a .ovb file instead. If a piece is hosted at a web address, File > Open from URL loads it straight from that link.

A few things worth knowing

• The recording travels only in bundles. A plain MusicXML or Guitar Pro file carries the notation, not any audio. If you want the score to play along with a real recording, you attach one yourself in Practice mode (see the Recording & sync tools), or you open an .ovb bundle that already includes one.
• Imported scores are fully editable. OpenVoicing does not treat an import as a locked picture. Once a piece is open you can turn on Edit and change notes, voices, ornaments, and dynamics like anything else.
• Opening a file replaces what is on screen. If you were in the middle of another piece, save it first (see the autosave section) or export it as a bundle so you can come back to it.

Exporting back out

When you are done, you are never stuck inside the app. From the File menu you can Export MusicXML to open the score in other notation software, Export MIDI, Print / save as PDF, or Export bundle to write a single .ovb that holds the score, any recording, and the sync so you can host or share the whole interactive piece.

If you are not importing anything, you can begin with an empty piece and write it yourself.

1. From the File menu choose New score (or click Start a new score in the welcome panel, or search "New score" in the command palette with Cmd/Ctrl+K).
2. You get a blank canvas: an empty score of rests, ready to fill.
3. Turn on Edit (top right). Press N to enter note-input mode, then type pitches with A through G and set note lengths with 1 2 4 8 6 3. Notes place and the cursor advances as you go.
4. Set the piece's identity from the edit toolbar: the Title button names the piece and also sets composer, tempo, time signature, and key, and the Tempo button sets the beats per minute.

A blank score behaves like any other piece. It autosaves as you type, you can play it back at any tempo, and you can export it as MusicXML or as a bundle when it is ready. There is nothing special you have to do to "start a project"; making the first note is starting the project.

OpenVoicing has no Save button, and that is on purpose. Everything you do saves automatically, right in your browser, the moment you do it.

How you can tell it is working

While you edit, the header shows "All changes saved" (and a brief "Saving..." as it writes). Hover over it and the tooltip confirms: your work is saved automatically in this browser. There is nothing to remember to click and no unsaved-changes trap to fall into.

What that means in practice

• Close the tab and come back and your piece is still there. Because the app remembers your last session, reopening the app on the same browser brings back the exact piece you were working on, along with your practice tempo, loop, and playback position. The welcome demo only appears on a genuinely first visit.
• No account, ever. You do not sign up, log in, or hand over an email. There is nothing to lock you out and nothing to lose a password to.
• It is per browser, per device. Your work lives in the browser you used, not in a cloud account. Open the app on a different computer, or a different browser, or a private/incognito window, and it starts fresh there. Clearing your browser's site data will also clear it.

To hold on to a piece, or to move it to another device or share it, use the File menu:

• Save to My pieces keeps a named copy in the app's own library (the My pieces menu), so you can juggle several pieces without exporting each one.
• Export bundle writes a single self-contained .ovb file with the score, any recording, and the sync map. That file is yours: back it up, host it anywhere static, email it, or point the embeddable player at it. Anyone who opens it sees the same interactive piece, no account needed.
• Export MusicXML hands the notation to any other notation program.

The short version: trust the autosave for day-to-day work, and export a bundle for anything you want to keep, move, or share.

If you want the shortest path from opening the app to feeling capable, follow this.

1. Open the app and let the Bach Invention No. 8 demo load.
2. Press the spacebar. Watch the highlighted note and the score scrolling to follow. Press space again to pause.
3. Switch to Practice with the toggle near the top right. Press the speed minus button a few times, or press h for half speed, and play again: slower, same pitch.
4. Loop a bit. Drag across a handful of notes, then play. It repeats. That is how you drill a hard passage.
5. Peek at editing. Turn on Edit, click a note, and press an arrow key to nudge it. Press Cmd/Ctrl+Z to undo. Turn Edit back off.
6. Bring in your own music. File > Open score file for a MusicXML or Guitar Pro file, or File > New score for a blank page.
7. Relax about saving. Notice the header says "All changes saved." When you have something worth keeping, File > Export bundle writes a portable .ovb you own.

That is the whole loop: open, play, slow down, loop, edit, and export. Everything else in OpenVoicing is a deeper version of one of these steps.