Choosing an instrument sound
Musaica is a free online sheet music reader with eight sampled instrument voices: piano, guitar, violin, oud, tanbur, kanun, ney and duduk. Open any score in the sheet player and pick a sound from the instrument menu; the whole score plays in that voice. You can change it at any time without uploading again.
A good rule: choose the instrument you are going to play. If you are only checking how a melody goes, piano is the clearest choice, because every note has a sharp attack and the samples cover the full keyboard range.
Why hearing your own instrument helps
Hearing a line in your own instrument's timbre makes it easier to imitate. A phrase played on a sustained violin or a breathy ney suggests a different shape than the same notes struck on a piano: where the line breathes, how long notes should ring, how a run should feel under the fingers. It also helps you recognise the passage when you hear it in a recording or a lesson.
The samples are real recordings of single notes, so they give you the colour of the instrument, not its playing technique. Vibrato, tremolo, slides and bends are not reproduced. Treat playback as a reliable guide to pitch and rhythm, and take expression from your teacher and from recordings.
Practice tools work with every sound
Whichever voice you choose, the practice tools are the same: slow a passage to anywhere from 10% to 200% speed, loop any bar range, add a metronome, use the rhythm counter, and check your tuning with the microphone intonation check. That last one matters most on instruments where you make the pitch yourself, such as violin, oud, ney and duduk.
Pick your instrument below for notation tips, practice advice and what to expect from recognition.