What’s changed.

Straight answers on every page

The headings across the site now say what the section actually answers — “Does SightReader check my rhythm, or just the notes?” rather than “Timing, scored.” Each page also ends with the questions we get asked most, answered plainly: what the free tier covers, whether you need a MIDI keyboard, how the grades relate to ABRSM, and what happens if you cancel.

Scales and note drills now count

Finish a scale or a run of note reading and you get the same result card a piece gives you — accuracy, stars, and the XP it earned. The day counts towards your streak too. Drills pay less than pieces and there’s a daily ceiling on what they’re worth, so they top up your practice rather than replace it.

Setting up a scale or drill in the app

Choosing the key, the type, how many octaves and which hand now lives in the same settings panel as everything else, behind the cog on the playback controls. In the phone and tablet apps those choices were behind a button that isn’t on screen while you play, so they were all but out of reach. Scales also get the L / LR / R control the pieces have, right above the stave — and both pages now remember how you left them.

A better way to tell us something isn’t working

The contact form now asks what your message is about, and if it’s something not working it asks the handful of things we’d otherwise have to write back and ask: which device you’re on, which piano you’re using, and how it’s connected. There’s a button to attach what SightReader can see on your device right now — you can read exactly what it says before you send it. The same form sits at the bottom of the MIDI help page, already filled in with whatever you told the page above it.

More music on a phone screen

The playback controls now tuck in close above the bottom menu instead of floating clear of it, and the little handle for dragging them about is gone on phones — there was nowhere roomier to drag them to on a screen that narrow, and it was taking up space the stave could use. Tablets and computers keep the handle, and the controls still move to any of the four edges there.

Make the music bigger

No single size suits a phone on a music desk, a tablet at arm’s length and a large monitor, so the score can now be zoomed and moved around. Pinch to zoom on a touch screen, ctrl or ⌘ and scroll on a computer (or just pinch the trackpad), drag to move it about — including when you’ve zoomed out and it no longer fills the screen — and double-tap to go straight back to normal. There are buttons in the bottom corner too. Nothing has changed if you leave it alone: the usual size is still the usual size.

The Android app can now be turned upside down

Your phone’s charging socket is at the bottom, so a MIDI cable plugged into a phone standing on the music desk comes out underneath it and props the whole thing forward. Turn the phone over and the cable leaves the top instead — and the app now turns with it, the way it always has on iPhone and iPad. Auto-rotate still has the final say, so a locked screen stays locked.

A settings panel while you play

The cog on the transport controls opens a panel with proper volume sliders for the piano and the metronome, auto-scroll, and the on-screen piano’s display options — no more poking a tiny pop-up open to reach a slider, and one less thing crowding the controls themselves.

Practise hands separately

A new L / LR / R control above the score. Pick one hand and only that hand is scored — the other stays on the page, greyed, so you keep reading the whole texture. It’s how most teachers ask you to learn a piece, and now the app agrees. One hand counts as practice rather than a performance: you still get your accuracy and timing at the end, but stars, ticking off an assignment and passing a grade level all wait until you play it with both hands. Pieces written for one hand are unaffected.

Printable reports for a class or a pupil

A termly summary you can hand to a parent or a head of department: how many days each pupil practised, how often that works out per week, how many pieces and sessions, average accuracy and stars. Quietest pupils first, with a plain line about anyone who hasn’t practised at all. Pick any date range and print it, or save it as a PDF.

Build a class from a spreadsheet

Export your class list from whatever your school already runs, paste it in or upload the file, and invite everyone at once. It reads name and email in either order, with or without a header, and copes with commas, semicolons or tabs. You see exactly who it found before anything is sent, and anything it couldn’t read is shown rather than quietly dropped.

Class invitations in your pupils’ language

Invitation emails now go out in Spanish, French or Italian as well as English. They default to whatever language you use SightReader in, and there’s a picker next to the send button for when that isn’t the right one — a family who reads Spanish, say, in an English-speaking school.

Your teacher can now write back

Teachers can mark a pupil’s work as seen, or leave a note on it — what went well, what to try next. The pupil sees it on their assignments page, gets a dot in the menu, and an email the next day if there were words in it. It answers the complaint the class tools were always going to attract: I did the work and nobody noticed.

Set work for one pupil, not the whole class

New assignments default to everyone, as before — but you can now pick exactly which pupils an assignment is for. Only they see it, and the completion grid counts only them, so a piece set to three pupils no longer reports the other six as not started. The workaround of making a pupil a class of one can be retired.

Download your class as a spreadsheet

Two exports on the class page: the roster with each pupil’s grade, streak, practice frequency, average accuracy and what they’re stuck on; and assignment completion, one row per pupil per piece with the stars they reached. Both open straight into Excel, Numbers or Sheets — for your own records, or to hand to a parent or a head of department.

Retire a class instead of deleting it

Last year’s group can now be archived: its join code stops working and its assignments stop appearing for pupils, but the roster, the work you set and everyone’s practice history stay exactly where they are. Unarchive whenever you want it back. Teachers who take lessons themselves can also finally see and leave a class they’ve joined — that section used to be hidden from teacher accounts entirely.

A walkthrough for teachers setting their first class

A step-by-step guide to the class tools — making a class, getting pupils in by code or email, setting pieces with a due date and a note, and reading the progress that comes back. It’s linked from the email you get when your teacher account is approved.

Students can finally see the work their teacher set them

Assignments used to reshuffle your practice queue invisibly — you never saw the title, the due date, or that a person had chosen the piece at all. There’s now an Assignments page listing everything you’ve been set: who set it, when it’s due, any note they left, and a tick against each piece as you pass it. It sits in the menu once you join a class, with a dot when there’s work outstanding. Teacher-set pieces are labelled in today’s queue too. And if you’re on the free plan, assignments now reach you at all — before, nothing whatsoever happened on your side when a teacher set you work.

Teachers can see who actually did the homework

Every assignment now shows how many pupils have finished it, started it, or not begun — and opens into a per-pupil list with a tick for each piece they’ve passed, quietest pupils first. Assignments can carry a note telling pupils what to focus on, and can be edited rather than deleted and rebuilt.

A weekly summary of how your class is going

Teachers get a Monday email: who practised, who hasn’t touched anything all week, and where each assignment stands. Switch it off under Settings → Teaching if you’d rather not.

Rename a class, remove a pupil, and other overdue tidying

Classes can be renamed, pupils can be removed without deleting the whole class, and anything destructive now asks first. The class page shows pupil and assignment counts at a glance, works properly on a phone, tells you when an invitation bounced rather than leaving it saying “Invited” for a month, and no longer shows teacher controls to pupils who happen to open it.

Ask a grown-up to unlock your assignments

If your teacher set you pieces beyond the free plan, you can now send a parent the details in one tap instead of being shown a subscription page you can’t act on.

Invite students to your class by email

Verified teachers can paste a list of email addresses on the class page — up to a whole school year at once — and every student gets an invitation with a join button. The link works whether or not they have an account yet: new students sign up through it and land straight in the class after confirming. There’s a copyable join link too (open to every teacher, verified or not), and pending invitations can be revoked.

Joining a class is easier — and you can be in more than one

There’s a proper Join a class page now, in the menu for anyone who isn’t a teacher, instead of a field hidden in preferences. Invitations sent to your email appear in the app automatically, joining always asks before sharing your progress with the teacher, students can belong to several classes at once, and you can leave a class any time from Preferences.

Teachers can now see each pupil’s progress

The class list now shows every pupil’s grade and practice streak — like the card on the homepage — and tapping a pupil opens their detail: when they last practised, how many sessions this week, their average accuracy, recent pieces, and the pieces they’re stuck on. Only the teacher sees this; classmates never see each other’s numbers.

Teacher applications now come with a reply

The application form finally asks where to reach you, confirms your application by email, and lets you know the decision either way — usually within a day or two.

A friendly pointer to the connect button

If you open a piece with no keyboard connected, a small bubble now points to the connect button, and it remembers your last keyboard by name. It also appears if you press play and nothing comes through, in case the keyboard just isn’t plugged in. Dismiss it once and it stays out of your way.

Endings that breathe

The final bar now plays out to its full length — the metronome clicks it through in Pitch & Rhythm mode, and the same pulse guides the pause in Pitch Only — and any notes still sounding fade away naturally instead of being cut off the moment the piece is done.

Full-screen music, and a score that scrolls sideways

The music’s controls now live in one neat row at its top right: previous and next piece, download for offline, and two new view buttons. On a computer, one clears everything else away so the score fills the screen in plain white — on phones the score is simply always full screen; the other lays the whole piece out on a single line that glides smoothly along as you play — like a teleprompter — and you can drag it back and forth yourself. Turning your phone sideways switches to the single line on its own; turn it back and the score folds back into lines. However you set things, your choice sticks for every piece.

A proper piano on screen, and controls you can move out of the way

The on-screen piano now looks and plays like a real one: keys wide enough for fingertips — around three octaves on a tablet in landscape — black keys with real depth, keys that dip when you press them, and a C2, C3, C4 marker on every C so you always know where you are. You can slide a finger along the keys and hear every note, and swipe the dark bar at the top downwards to put it away. Reopening it always brings your playing range back to the centre. The computer-keyboard letters on each key are now off unless you want them, with a Keybinds switch in the piano’s own top bar. It also fills a sensible share of the screen now — about a fifth of an upright tablet, and two-fifths of a phone held sideways, leaving the rest for the music. The floating playback controls can be dragged by the dots beside them to the bottom, top, left or right of the screen; the four spots light up as you drag, and they stay where you put them.

Sound comes back after another app borrows your speakers

If GarageBand — or a phone call, or anything else that takes over the audio — interrupted SightReader, the piano went silent for good and only reloading the page brought it back. It now recovers on its own.

A louder piano, bigger touch keys, and a phone that works sideways

The built-in piano sound now goes properly loud at full volume — it used to top out too quiet, especially on phone speakers. The on-screen piano’s keys are a third wider on touch screens, so a fingertip lands where you meant. And holding a phone sideways now hides the top bar and slims the bottom one, leaving the room for the music itself. Long piece titles also wrap instead of being cut short, and Bluetooth pairing help now reminds you to disconnect your keyboard from any device it auto-connects to.

A tidier menu on wide screens, and the same shortcuts everywhere

The side menu now groups Grades, Library, Notes and Scales under “Play”, with adding your own music, your downloads, your classes and your preferences under “More” — the same shortcuts the phone menu offers. Downloads also keeps the menu on screen now instead of dropping you onto a page with no way back.

Faster public pages if you’re a long way from the UK

Our public pages — the guides, comparisons and blog — are now served from a copy near you rather than assembled in Britain each time. Signed-in pages still fetch your data from Dublin, so there is more to do here for anyone practising from outside Europe.

A “More” menu on phones, so nothing is buried

The last tab in the bottom bar now opens a short menu. Adding your own sheet music, your offline downloads and — if you teach — your classes all live there. Previously you had to already know the web address to reach them on a phone.

A page for the iPhone, iPad and Android apps

sightreader.app/apps has both store links in one place, plus the reason the app matters more on iOS: no iPhone or iPad browser can talk to a MIDI keyboard, so on those devices the app is the only way to have your playing marked.

Spanish, French and Italian pages now have titles in the right language

The pages themselves were translated, but a dozen of them still showed an English title and description in search results and browser tabs. They now match the page you are actually reading.

Twenty-one head-to-head app comparisons, and a roundup to go with them

Every piano sight-reading and learning app worth considering now has a comparison page with checked prices, a feature table and a section on when the other product is the better fit. The roundup at /best-sight-reading-apps publishes its criteria before its results.

Why sight-reading apps need a MIDI keyboard

A long piece on what MIDI transmits, what audio transcription can and cannot do, and why we take MIDI in from your keyboard and MusicXML in for scores. It is also the honest answer to “why no microphone support?”.

The metronome now has a line you can see

Turn it on and a line sweeps across the score in time with the beat, reaching each note exactly when it should be played. Practice also counts you in for a full bar first, with the beat number on screen, so you are not starting cold on beat one. Listen mode gets the same line, following the playback.

SightReader is on the App Store and Google Play

The iOS and Android apps are the full product rather than a companion: the whole library, every grade, uploads, offline downloads and teacher views. On iPhone and iPad the app is also the only way to use a MIDI keyboard, because no iOS browser supports Web MIDI.

Plug a keyboard in mid-session and we switch to it

If you connect a MIDI keyboard while the app is already open and nothing else is active, it becomes your input device automatically. Previously you had to reconnect by hand.

Listen mode: hear a piece before you read it

Any piece, any grade level, played back with dynamics and articulation so you know what you are aiming at. The transport dock beneath the score now also carries tempo control, a metronome you can sync to, and separate volume sliders.

Schytte’s 25 Melodious Studies added to the free tier

The free library is now 54 pieces — Schäfer’s Book 1 plus the Schytte studies.

Next and previous piece buttons on every player page

The apps speak Spanish, French and Italian

The native apps now follow the same four languages as the website.

New accounts start by finding their level

Sign up and the first thing you do is the placement check rather than a form: pick a rough level, adjust it against a real piece, then play it.

Redesigned for phones

A proper app shell on small screens — bottom navigation, larger touch targets, and a score that uses the width it has.

Rebuilt the emails we send you

Sign-in, welcome and account emails now render properly on mobile and in dark mode.

MIDI troubleshooting, built into the app

If your keyboard does not appear, the connection panel now walks you through the usual causes instead of leaving you to guess.

Magic-link sign-in opens straight into the iOS app

Buy Pro inside the apps

Subscriptions through the App Store and Google Play, alongside the existing card checkout on the website. Buy on either and sign in with the same account.

MIDI connection made reliable across the whole app

Your keyboard now stays connected as you move between practice, grades, scales and notes, instead of needing a fresh handshake on each page.

The on-screen piano works properly on touchscreens

A daily dashboard

Open the app to today’s practice, your streak and where you left off, rather than to a menu. Library, progress and account pages all load noticeably faster too.

Sign in with Apple, and delete your account yourself

Account deletion is now a button in your account settings, with a 30-day grace period before anything is purged.

Practise offline

Pro subscribers can download pieces and grade levels for use with no connection — on a train, in a practice room, anywhere the signal is not. SightReader also installs as an app from the browser.

Badges and public profiles

Cosmetic achievements for the things worth marking — keys covered, grades finished, streaks kept — and a shareable profile page. You can turn the public page off in your account settings.

Annual Pro plan, 20% cheaper than monthly

A written guide for every grade

What the sight-reading test actually asks for at each level, from Initial through Grade 8, and how to practise for it.

All nine grade tracks complete

Initial Grade through Grade 8 — around 340 purpose-built exercises, each written to the published ABRSM sight-reading parameters for its level.

Multi-octave scales, matched to real grade expectations

Grade certificates

Finish a grade and we issue a certificate with your accuracy and the pieces you read. Download it as a PDF or share the link.

XP, levels and eight tiers

Every star you earn counts towards a level, and levels group into tiers from Novice to Legend.