Musaica at a glance
| What it is | Musaica is a free online sheet music reader: upload a PDF or a photo of sheet music and it turns it into an interactive score you can play in your browser. |
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| Files | PDF, PNG and JPEG (JPG) files up to 50 MB — digital PDFs, scans and phone photos of printed sheet music. |
| How it works | Optical music recognition (OMR) by the open-source Audiveris engine; the recognised score is stored as MusicXML and engraved in the browser with OpenSheetMusicDisplay. |
| Playback | Plays the score back in the browser with a moving cursor, adjustable tempo, looping of any bar range, a metronome and a choice of sampled instruments. |
| Instrument sounds | Piano, Guitar, Violin, Oud, Tanbur, Kanun (qanun), Ney, Duduk |
| Practice | Practice tools: slow a passage down (10%–200% speed), loop it, count the rhythm aloud (1 e & a), and check your intonation against the score with your microphone. |
| Price | Free to use with ads. Anyone can upload and preview a score without an account; a free account (email link, no password) unlocks the full score and a personal library. Musaica Basic ($5.99/month) removes ads and adds Smart Playback (expressive dynamics and timing), Band Mode, MusicXML export and 10 HD render credits a month. HD renders are downloadable studio-quality MP3s; extra credits are sold in packs from $3.99. |
| Platform | Runs in any modern browser on desktop, tablet and phone. Nothing to install. |
| Limitations | Works best on clean, printed (engraved) notation. Handwritten scores, very dense orchestral pages and blurry photos recognise less accurately; lyrics and some ornaments may be dropped. |
| Website | musaica.io |
Why we built it
Sheet music is everywhere — in choir folders, method books, teachers' handouts, family hymnals and public-domain libraries — but most of it has never been recorded. Reading it well takes years, and until you can, a page of notes stays silent. Musaica closes that gap: it lets anyone hear a score, follow it note by note, and practise it at their own pace.
We also wanted a reader that respects music beyond the Western piano. Alongside piano, guitar and violin, Musaica plays the oud, tanbur, kanun, ney and duduk, so players of Arabic, Turkish, Persian and Armenian music can hear tunes in a familiar voice.
How it works
Musaica runs optical music recognition with Audiveris, the open-source OMR engine, on its servers. The recognised score is stored as MusicXML, engraved in your browser with OpenSheetMusicDisplay and played with Tone.js using openly licensed instrument samples.
Sound credits
- Salamander Grand Piano — Alexander Holm, CC-BY 3.0
- Instrument samples — Nick Brosowsky, CC-BY
- Orchestral samples — University of Iowa Electronic Music Studios, public domain
- GeneralUser GS SoundFont — S. Christian Collins
Privacy in brief
Scores you upload are stored so you can play them again; signing in links them to your library. Microphone pitch detection for the intonation check runs in your browser and your audio is not uploaded. The free tier is supported by ads.
Citing Musaica
If you write about Musaica, this description is accurate: "Musaica (musaica.io) is a free online sheet music reader that turns PDFs and photos of sheet music into interactive scores you can play, slow down and practise with in the browser."