HummingKeys Guide

A playable keyboard, a small multitrack studio and a songwriting assistant, all in your browser.

Getting started

1. Open HummingKeys in Chrome or Edge (needed for MIDI keyboards; Firefox and Safari work for everything else).
2. Click Start playing — browsers only allow sound after a click.
3. Optional: install it as an app from your browser's menu (Install HummingKeys). After your first visit it also works offline.

← Open the studio

The screen

Hum & sing

This is what HummingKeys is named for: hum or sing an idea and it becomes music.

1. Open the 🎤 Hum tab and tap Start listening, then allow the microphone. (The 🎤 HUM button in the bottom bar works from any tab.)
2. Hum or sing. Short "doo" or "da" syllables give the cleanest notes.

• Play through the instrument plays your voice back as the selected instrument. Turn it off to record silently.
• Snap → Notes in the key keeps every note inside the song's key. Octave shifts the notes up or down, for example to hum low and get a flute melody.
• Sensitivity: raise it in a quiet room, lower it if background noise gets picked up.
• Press ● Record to capture your melody on the selected track. It appears on the sheet music with the right notes and rhythm.
• ✨ Build a song from my hum detects the key, picks chords for each bar, and adds chord, bass and drum tracks around your melody.

Beatbox a beat

Switch to Beat and beatbox: "boom" = kick, "pff" or "ka" = snare, "ts" = hi-hat. Each sound plays a real drum and is recorded onto a drum track (one is created if needed). If it mixes your sounds up, use Train my sounds: make each sound four times when asked.

On your phone

Open HummingKeys in your phone's browser (Safari on iPhone, Chrome on Android).

• Held upright: the page scrolls, with the Hum tuner up top and a one-octave keyboard pinned at the bottom.
• Rotated sideways: Stage mode turns the screen into a big multi-touch keyboard (two octaves). Along the top: Record, Play/Stop, instrument, octave ◀ ▶, PEDAL (hold for sustain), 🎤 HUM with a live note readout, metronome, full screen and exit.
• The screen stays awake while you play. On iPhone, sound plays even with the silent switch on.
• For a full-screen app icon, use Add to Home Screen (Safari's Share menu, or Chrome's ⋮ menu).

Playing

Computer keyboard

The middle letter row plays a piano octave and a half:

Z/X move down or up an octave. C/V make it softer or louder. Hold Space for the sustain pedal. Prefer a real piano layout? Choose ⌨ MAP → Two rows for 2½ octaves.

Mouse or touch

Click a key to play it. Clicking lower on a key plays louder. Drag across the keys for a glissando.

MIDI keyboard

Plug it in (USB) and allow MIDI when the browser asks. The MIDI Input panel shows the connected device, and a light flashes when you play. Velocity, the sustain pedal, pitch bend and the mod wheel (vibrato) all work. You can pick one device or one channel if you have several.

Sounds

The Instrument list holds all 128 General MIDI instruments (pianos, organs, guitars, strings, brass, synths and more), loaded from real recorded samples, plus nine built-in synths and three drum kits that work offline. Sound library switches between FluidR3 (fast) and MusyngKite (richer, larger downloads).

Performance tools (bottom bar)

• Chord: one key plays a whole chord. In key picks the right chord for the song's key.
• ARP: turns the notes you hold into an arpeggio locked to the tempo. Use ▾ to choose the pattern, rate, octaves, gate and latch.
• SPLIT: notes below the split point play a different track, such as bass in your left hand and piano in your right.
• Layering: arm (●) extra instrument tracks, and the keyboard plays and records them together.
• Velocity curve: Light touch, Normal, Heavy touch or Fixed.

Recording

1. Select the track to record into (click it in the Tracks list).
2. Press R or the red button. The display counts in one bar (turn this off with 1 BAR).
3. Play, then press R again (or Enter) to stop.

Other tracks play along while you record, so you can build a song one part at a time. Recording again adds to what's already there (overdub). Press Ctrl+Z to undo a take. Turn on the metronome with the metronome button or M.

Sheet music

What you play is written onto a grand staff as you go. During playback each note lights up, and you can click any bar to jump there.

Chord symbols come from the Songwriter's chord chart when you have one. Otherwise they're worked out from the notes. Lyrics from the Songwriter appear under the melody, one word (or hyphenated syllable, like beau-ti-ful) per note. The "Now playing" panel names whatever chord you're holding.

Piano roll

• Double-click to add a note, or double-click a note to delete it.
• Drag a note to move it; drag its right edge to change its length. Hold Alt to move freely without snapping to the grid.
• Drag on an empty area to select several notes. Ctrl+A selects all, Delete removes, and the arrow keys nudge (Shift+↑/↓ moves by an octave).
• Quantize snaps the selected notes (or the whole track) to the grid. Ctrl+mouse wheel zooms, and clicking the ruler moves the playhead.

Multitrack (Tracks tab)

Every track gets a lane with its own name, arm (●), mute, solo, volume and pan. MIDI tracks show their notes, drum tracks show their hits, and audio tracks show recordings as waveforms. Song sections from the Songwriter appear along the ruler.

• Add tracks with + Instrument, + Drums or + Audio.
• Drag audio clips to move them, and press Delete to remove the selected clip.
• Double-click a MIDI lane to edit it in the Piano Roll, or a drum lane to edit it in the Beat Maker.
• Import audio… places a WAV or MP3 at the playhead, for example a backing track to sing over.

Beat maker

A step sequencer for drum tracks. Click a step to add a hit, or Shift+click for a softer ghost hit. Click a drum's name to hear it. You can load a groove (Pop, Rock, Hip-hop, Trap, Funk, Bossa nova, Four on the floor and more), choose a kit (Acoustic, 808 or Lo-fi), set the pattern length and swing, and choose how many bars it plays. Fill song repeats it to the end of the song. Drums you play live on the drum track are kept alongside the pattern.

Microphone recording

1. In the sidebar's Microphone panel, choose your input and click Enable microphone. Allow access when the browser asks. An audio track is created for you if needed.
2. Make sure the audio track is armed (● is red).
3. Press Record. The take appears in the Tracks tab as a waveform clip.

On a Mac, also allow your browser under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone. Mic recording works in every modern browser on Windows and Mac.

Songwriter

A guided workspace that takes you through eight steps: Idea → Sound & feel → Structure → Chords → Melody → Lyrics → Arrange → Polish. Click a step to focus on it.

Song brief

What the song is about, plus its genre, mood, key (major or minor), tempo and production notes. Changing the key or tempo here updates the whole project.

Inspiration tracks

Drop in songs you love (MP3, WAV, M4A and more). HummingKeys estimates their tempo, key, repeating chord loop, tone (bright or warm), density, dynamics, energy arc and likely instrumentation. Use Use tempo, Use key or Use harmony as idea to borrow the feel. The analysis runs on your computer and the files are never uploaded. Readings marked with "?" are less certain.

Structure & chords

Start from a template (Verse/Chorus, Pop with pre-chorus and bridge, AABA, 12-bar blues) or add sections yourself. Type chords with one bar per |, for example C | G | Am F | F. The Roman numerals underneath show how each chord works in the key. ▶ plays a section, and ✨ fills it with a progression that suits the mood. Progression ideas suggests several options you can audition and apply.

Lyrics

Write with [Verse], [Chorus] headers. The margin shows the syllable count of each line and rhyme letters (A, B, C…), so you can keep lines balanced and rhymes consistent.

Arranger

Generates chords (pop piano, strings pad, arpeggio or block chords), bass (groove, whole notes, 8th pulse or walking), drums, and a draft melody that follows your lyric syllables. It writes into tracks named Chords, Bass, Drums and Melody. Run it again any time, and use Undo if you prefer the previous version.

AI co-writer

The co-writer is Claude, Anthropic's AI model, working inside your project. It reads your brief, chords, lyrics, tracks and inspiration analysis, and it can write directly into the song: update the brief, set the structure and chords, write or finish lyrics, compose melodies and bass lines, build the arrangement, and play sections for you. It explains the music theory as it goes.

Setup

1. Create an account at console.anthropic.com, add credit, and create an API key.
2. In Songwriter, open Co-writer settings and paste the key. Pick a model: Opus 5.5 (best), Sonnet 5.5 (faster) or Haiku 5.5 (fastest and cheapest).

Ideas to try

• "It's about leaving my hometown. Ask me questions to sharpen the idea."
• "Use my inspiration tracks to suggest a key, tempo and feel."
• "Write chords for every section, and make the chorus lift."
• "Finish my second verse in the same rhyme scheme."
• "Write a singable chorus melody for these lyrics."
• "Arrange the full song, then play it from the chorus."

Stop interrupts a reply, and New chat starts a fresh conversation. Anything the co-writer changes can be undone with Ctrl+Z.

Saving & exporting

Key mapping

Open ⌨ MAP (bottom bar) or File → Keyboard & MIDI mapping.

• Note keys: click a key on the mini keyboard, then press the computer key you want for it. Shift+click adds an extra key for the same note, and right-click clears it.
• Actions: give any action (play, record, octave, arpeggiator, switch tracks or tabs…) a computer key. Click MIDI… and then move a knob or hit a pad on your MIDI controller to assign it there instead.
• Layouts: Standard (one row, DAW style) or Two rows (a piano-like 2½ octaves).

Default shortcuts

Troubleshooting

Privacy

HummingKeys runs on your computer. Your songs, recordings and inspiration tracks stay in your browser and in the files you save. Instrument samples and the sheet-music engine are downloaded from public CDNs (jsDelivr and GitHub Pages). The AI co-writer only runs when you use it: it sends your song details (brief, chords, lyrics, note summaries and the inspiration analysis numbers, never the audio files) to Anthropic's API using your own key, and the key is stored only in your browser.