For players
You can play it back. Now play what’s yours.
KeyFu is a piano practice app for iPhone and iPad, for self-taught players who can play songs back from videos.
Sit down without a video running and not much comes. That gap is a practice problem, not a talent problem, and KeyFu is built for it.
Your chords
What you already know is the starting point
C · G · Am · F is 1–5–6m–4
If you can find C, G, Am and F on the keys, you have what KeyFu needs. The numbers show why those four go together.
Nothing has to be unlearned, and nothing has to be read first. 1 is home, 5 pulls back toward it, and 4 and 6m sit in between.
The small m is the same m as in Am, the darker-sounding one. The roles hold in every key, even where your hands meet new shapes.
Practice in the coach’s pick, or choose any of the twelve keys yourself; today’s plan is built in it.
Your coach
Someone who takes “I just want to play” seriously
one coach · KeyFu
“Something of my own, both hands, without a video” is a complete goal here. Your coach plans what you practice next, so that stops being your job.
New shapes and the changes between them come first, untimed. Each session picks up from what your hands played last time.
There is one coach, KeyFu, and when he changes the plan — a slower tempo, an exercise finished early, a shorter session — he tells you why.
Play freely
Play freely, with nothing to get wrong
no plan · no clock · no score
Hold a chord on most screens of the app and KeyFu names it. In Play freely, the app holds the harmony and nothing you play is wrong.
Play freely has no plan, no clock and no score. Each run has one goal, picked from how your earlier runs went.
A key outside the lit ones just turns a soft gray for a moment. Nothing is marked against you, and nothing stops.
Timing
Without a video, timing drifts. KeyFu shows where.
early · late · in time
Learning from videos leaves you with a tempo you have never held on your own.
KeyFu reads which keys you pressed and when. If several notes in a row land a hair ahead, a card names the habit and suggests letting the beat arrive first.
A small dot shows where you landed, early or late: a record, not a mistake. The tempo gives you room when chords miss and picks up when they land.
The screen
Blocks, not a page
It looks like the videos you learned from — blocks toward a line. The difference is what the blocks are for.
There is no sheet music in the app and no stage at which you need it. When a block reaches the line, that is the key you press.
A wrong key lights red. When a chord is not fully down at the line, the roll waits for you, and nothing is scored while it waits.
Each chord carries its number and its name. Once a part feels familiar, one tap hides the roll, and the pattern stays under your hands.
Your setup
The piano in the living room counts
A digital piano with a USB port is all this needs.
Connect it to an iPad or iPhone and put the iPad on the music stand. KeyFu reads what you play over MIDI, not through a microphone.
USB works the moment you plug in. For Bluetooth MIDI, tap Connect a Bluetooth keyboard in KeyFu, then pick your keyboard.
Does your keyboard work with an iPad? Check in two minutes.
Sessions fit the time you pick: twenty minutes on a weekday, half an hour on Sunday. Tell KeyFu your keyboard’s size, and the exercises it picks stay inside it.
Come back after four days and nothing is reset. Skills you have not touched show as fading until you play them again, and that is all.
Join the beta
Invitations go out in small waves. If you taught yourself so far, you are exactly who this next group is for.
We send one confirmation email, then invitations in small waves. Without the tick we use your address only for the beta and the launch (privacy).
You need an iPhone or iPad and a keyboard that connects by USB or Bluetooth MIDI — most digital pianos do. What one session looks like.