Last updated 23 October 2026
Privacy and terms
PianoGuide is a free piano reference and practice site. There are no accounts, no ads, no cookies and no tracking, and nothing you do here is sent to us.
What is kept on your device
To remember your choices, the site keeps a few things in your browser's storage. They stay on your device: they are never sent to us or to anyone else.
- Light or dark mode, if you pick one with the button in the header.
- Practice: what you last practised and your settings, and the tally of this session (right answers, skips, what to go over again). The tally is forgotten when you close the tab.
- Metronome: the tempo, time signature, subdivision and accents, and the tempo changes you set.
- A copy of the site itself, so it opens without the internet: only the site's own files, explained in Saved for offline use below.
None of these are cookies, and none of them can identify you. To delete them, clear this site's data in your browser's settings.
Saved for offline use
So that it opens without the internet, your browser keeps a copy of the site's own files on your device, in its cache. This happens by itself in the background: nothing is asked of you, and nothing is sent anywhere.
- What is saved: the site's pages, styles and scripts, its typefaces and icons, the search index, the piano recordings and the sheet music library. These are the same files anyone gets from the site.
- What is never saved: anything about you. Not what you search for, type or play: the microphone's sound and the notes from a MIDI keyboard are never kept. (Your settings are kept separately, as listed above.)
- When: on your first visit, the main pages and what they need (about 1 MB), then each page you open. Opened from your home screen, the whole site (about 5 MB), so every scale, arpeggio and chord works offline.
- Up to date: online, pages always come from the site, so you see the latest. When the site changes, the copy is replaced and the old one deleted. The piano recordings, typefaces and sheet music library don't change, so they are kept.
- Removing it: on an iPhone or iPad, deleting the PianoGuide icon from your home screen deletes the copy it kept; the copy kept by Safari is under Settings › Apps › Safari › Advanced › Website Data (Settings › Safari on older versions). On a computer, clear this site's data in your browser's settings. Either way, the site still works online.
- If offline use is turned off: your device deletes its copy by itself, the next time you open the site online.
The microphone
Practice can listen to your own piano. It only turns the microphone on after you press “Allow the microphone”, and your browser may ask for your permission too.
- The sound is checked in your browser, a few times a second, for the notes you play. It is never recorded, saved or sent anywhere.
- The microphone goes off when you press Stop, switch to another tab or app, or leave the page, and after five minutes without hearing you play.
- It never comes back on by itself: each time, the page asks again.
MIDI keyboards
If you connect a MIDI keyboard in Practice, the notes you play are read in your browser to check your answers. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Hosting
The site is hosted on GitHub Pages, a service of GitHub, Inc., which delivers the pages through a content delivery network. Like any web host, GitHub and that network receive your IP address and the pages your browser asks for, and may keep them in logs for security. GitHub's privacy statement explains how it handles them.
Everything else comes from the site itself: the typefaces, the sheet music and the piano recordings. There are no analytics, ads or social media buttons.
Using the site
PianoGuide is free to use. It is made to help you practise alongside your lessons, not to replace a teacher.
- Fingerings are the common ones, checked against published fingering charts. Many scales and arpeggios can be fingered in more than one good way: if your teacher gives you a different fingering, follow your teacher.
- No guarantees. The site is offered as it is. Care goes into getting every note and finger right, but there may be mistakes, and the site may change or be unavailable at times.
Credits
- Piano sound: recordings of a Steinway by the University of Iowa Electronic Music Studios.
- Sheet music drawn with VexFlow, under the MIT licence.
- Typefaces: Bricolage Grotesque and Instrument Sans, under the SIL Open Font License.
Questions and changes
To ask a question or report a mistake, open an issue on the site's GitHub page. If this page changes, the date at the top changes with it.