Sponsor
Nocturne is sponsored and provided for free by Pianoers.com, a site with piano reviews and guides for learners. Their support keeps this virtual piano free, without ads or sign-ups.
The sound
The piano you hear is the Salamander Grand Piano V3, recorded by Alexander Holm from a Yamaha C5 grand and released under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Nocturne uses 30 of its recordings, one every three semitones, and tunes the notes in between.
How it works
Everything runs in your browser with the Web Audio API. Each key press plays a recording through a filter that makes soft notes darker, a volume envelope, a sustain pedal model and a reverb that imitates a concert hall. Up to 64 notes can sound at once.
Accessibility
Every piano key is a labelled button, the controls work with the keyboard, and the light effects respect your system's reduced-motion setting where they can.
Credits
- Piano samples: Salamander Grand Piano V3 by Alexander Holm, CC BY 3.0.
- Typefaces: Cormorant Garamond and Manrope, SIL Open Font License.
- Song melodies: traditional and public-domain works.