jptrainer 0.2.0

Jazz Piano Trainer

Jazz Piano Trainer

A desktop application to help you learn jazz piano modes and chords using your MIDI keyboard.
Press NEXT to get a question, play the notes on your keyboard, and the app reveals the answer automatically once you hit all the right keys.

Watch the walkthrough video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCQai649s_Q

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Features

• Modes & Chords — randomised questions covering all 12 keys, 7 modes, and a curated set of jazz chords
• MIDI input — connect one or more MIDI keyboards; correct notes light up green, wrong notes red on the virtual keyboard
• Virtual piano keyboard — resizable, scrollable, supports 1–7 octaves
• Built-in sampler — plays back audio samples for each note via piano-sampler; can be disabled
• Persistent settings — MIDI ports, sampler options, and display preferences saved to jptrainer.json

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Dependencies

Package	Purpose
piano-sampler	Audio sample playback engine (sister project)
mido + python-rtmidi	MIDI input handling
pygame	Audio mixing
Pillow	Image loading and keyboard scaling
tkinter (stdlib)	GUI framework

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Installation

With uv (recommended)

uv tool install jptrainer
jptrainer

With pip

pip install jptrainer
jptrainer

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Usage

1. Launch the app — the virtual keyboard and dark-themed UI open automatically.
2. Open ⚙ Settings (gear icon, top-right of the header) to:
   • Select which MIDI input port(s) to use
   • Configure the sampler (enable/disable, velocity, sustain, polyphony, sample path)
   • Set how many octaves to display (1–7)
3. Choose MODES or CHORDS from the mode selector in the header.
4. Click ▶ NEXT — a question appears (e.g. "G Dorian").
5. Play the required notes on your MIDI keyboard. Correct notes glow green; the answer reveals itself when all notes are played. After 10 seconds the answer is shown automatically.
6. Click ↺ REPLAY to hear the audio example again.

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Settings file

Settings are saved to jptrainer.json in the project root:

{
  "midi_ports": ["Your MIDI Device"],
  "sampler_enabled": true,
  "ignore_velocity": true,
  "sustain": false,
  "polyphony": 32,
  "samples_path": "./piano_samples.zip",
  "octaves": 4,
  "debug": false
}

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Related projects

• piano-sampler — the simple piano sampler used by this app

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🚨 WARNING: INCOMING SHAMELESS PLUG 🚨 Please avert your eyes if you are allergic to indie devs promoting their own stuff on their free MIT repos! 🫣

🎹 JazzPianoTrainer — Meet its beefy C++ sibling, JazzPianoLab!

I loved working on this repo, but my curiosity got the better of me. I really wanted to build my own highly controllable audio tool from the ground up, just to see what I could do. Fast forward a bit, and I accidentally spent way too much time creating a massive, supercharged version called JazzPianoLab!

It's written in C++ using the JUCE 8 audio framework and is packed with features I nerded out on:

🎹 VST3 Virtual Instrument Support

🎼 Advanced Chord Profile System

⚡ Real-Time Chord Identification

🔴 Built-in MIDI Recorder

...and much more!

Don't worry, this MIT project isn't going anywhere! But if you’re looking for a next-level jazz piano training tool (or just want to see what happens when a developer gets completely carried away), check out JazzPianoLab for the latest updates and downloads.

Let’s make jazz piano learning smarter and more fun together!