Ever wondered how this piece of sheet music really sounds?

Updated 26 October 2026

"I've always wanted to learn this song, but the score looks so advanced." "What does the alto part of this hymn actually sound like?" "The gig is tomorrow, I got a pile of charts today, and I don't sight-read." Sheet music answers all of that – once you can hear it. Duly Noted reads the page and plays it, in your browser, in a couple of minutes. Then you set a loop on the hard bars and start practising.

From a page to sound in three steps

1. Give it the music. Upload a PDF, photograph the page with your phone, or drop in a MusicXML file from a notation program. One page or many.
2. Let it read. The server recognises the staves, notes, rhythms, chord symbols and the signs that steer the piece – optical music recognition, done for you. A lead sheet takes about a minute.
3. Press play. The piece plays while the current bar is highlighted on your own sheet music, so you follow along in the notation you already know.

You hear it the way it is written

Playing the notes in a row is not the same as hearing the piece. Duly Noted plays what the page says:

• The melody as notated, with ties, dots, triplets and accidentals in place.
• The chords voiced from the chord symbols – Gm7, C7♭9, F/A – so a lead sheet sounds like a song, not a single line.
• A bass line under the chords, so you hear the harmony move.
• The playing order: repeats, first and second endings, D.S. al Coda and D.C. al Fine are followed as a musician would.

If a chord symbol or a repeat came out wrong, you click the bar and correct it. The sound updates at once.

Then make it yours

Hearing the piece once is where it starts. Everything after that is built for practice:

• Slow it down without the pitch changing – the fast run at half speed is still in tune.
• Loop the hard bars. Click a bar and shift-click another; on a phone, tap the bar. The passage repeats until you can play it.
• Mute a part. Take away the melody and sing or play it yourself over the chords and the bass. Keep only the bass and play the chords. Or listen to the melody alone to learn it by ear.
• Transpose to the key you sing in, or to the one your instrument reads in.
• Count-in and metronome, so you come in on time.

What it reads

Clean printed music reads best: lead sheets and songbooks, hymnals, single-line parts, piano scores. It takes a PDF, a photo or scan of the page, or a MusicXML file, which needs no recognition at all. Handwritten music is not read yet. Our guide to optical music recognition explains what makes a page easy or hard to read, and how to photograph one so that it reads right.

Who uses it

• Choir singers who want to hear their own part before the first rehearsal – and mute the others when they have it.
• Learners who read music slowly and want to hear what a bar sounds like before they play it.
• Teachers who send a student home with the piece playing at a tempo they can manage.
• Band and ensemble members who get a stack of new charts the day before the gig: upload them all, set a loop on the tricky bars in each one, and practise – instead of guessing at the first rehearsal.
• Anyone with a drawer full of sheet music they have always wondered about.

Common questions

Is it a recording of the piece?

No. Duly Noted plays the notes on the page, synthesised in the browser. That is the point: you hear this arrangement, in this key, at the tempo you choose – not someone else's recording of a different version.

Do I need to install anything?

No. It runs in the browser on a computer, tablet or phone, and your pieces are in the same library on all of them.

How accurate is it?

Clean printed music reads very well. Dense piano scores and very small print are harder, for every OMR program. Chord symbols and the playing order can be corrected bar by bar in the app; the notes themselves cannot be edited yet.

Can I try it for free?

Yes. Your first piece of up to 4 pages is read and played for free, with no card needed, and you can mute parts and correct chords and repeats. Tempo changes, loops and transposing come with a pack of 3 pieces for €3 or a subscription from €5 a month – see pricing.