Learn the pieces you love faster — and keep them.
Clef puts real sheet music on screen, hears every note over MIDI, and re-tests each bar from memory right before you’d forget it. So what you learned last month is still under your fingers today.
14-day free trial, no credit card required. Then the founding rate: $9/mo, locked for as long as you stay.
Feedback you can trust
Every note is verified over MIDI. No mic guesswork, no false “well done.”
Real notation, not falling lights
You practice from engraved sheet music, the same notation that sits on a music stand. The reading you build works on paper too.
Reviews before you forget
Each memorized bar comes back right before it would slip. Proven spaced repetition, applied to your hands.
The problem
You put in the hours, and the piece still slips away.
From adult pianists, in their own words:
After two weeks
“I am shocked at how quickly I'll forget bits of a song that, just two weeks ago, I had finally worked up to performance level.”
Piano World forums · 40 years of playing After three weeks
“After 3 weeks, I tried playing the old songs again but my fingers just didn't know which key to press.”
Piano World forums After four years
“Almost 4 years in, and I can't play a whole song through if someone asks me to.”
r/pianolearning
It isn’t your memory, and it isn’t your age. Forgetting actually happens on a predictable schedule, but most of us just don’t practice that way.
How Clef works
Practice that runs on your memory’s schedule.
No method to study, no plan to maintain. You sit down and play; Clef tracks every bar and brings each one back at the right moment.
The score responds to you
Real sheet music, live over MIDI. Right notes turn green and the cursor moves forward; a wrong note is marked in red at the exact spot. No guessing whether you got it right.
Memorize one bar at a time
Clef shows the bar before as a reminder, and you play the next bar from memory. It tells you instantly whether you had it. New bars get a gentle first pass with the score visible.
Each bar comes back before it slips
The proven spaced-repetition schedule, applied to your hands: every memorized bar is re-tested right when it matters. Miss one, and you re-practice it until it runs clean twice in a row.
From fragments to the whole piece
Every few bars, Clef has you play from the very top, so the parts stay one piece. Sessions are capped: a done-for-today screen, a streak, and a practice heatmap that shows the habit building.
Why it works
The method isn’t new. Applying it to piano is.
The forgetting curve was mapped by Hermann Ebbinghaus in 1885, and spacing reviews against it is one of the most replicated results in learning research. It is how medical students hold anatomy and how flashcard apps teach languages. Clef runs your repertoire on the same schedule, with MIDI as the honest judge.
Pianists already swear by each ingredient:
Feedback that forces you right
“I learned the verse of “Someone You Loved” in one sitting because it forced me to get it right.”
Pianist’s blog, reviewing a wait-mode practice app MIDI, not microphones
“Now note recognition is working perfectly.”
App Store review, after connecting a MIDI keyboard Spaced repetition, by hand
“Practice the piece every second day, then increase the days in between.”
r/piano, advice for keeping memorized pieces
Clef puts all three into one practice loop.
See the whole method in seven minutes
How pianists memorize with recall practice and spaced repetition, and how Clef runs that loop for you.
The founding cohort
Become a Founding Pianist.
Clef opens with a cohort of fifty. Why so few? Every requested piece is curated by hand and every support email is answered by one person. The cap keeps both true.
Founding bonuses
A direct line to the founder
Founding feedback visibly shapes what gets built next.
Founding piece priority
Your catalog requests go to the top of the curation queue.
“I’m Daniel. I built Clef after one season too many of losing pieces I’d already learned. It runs on my own practice every day, and every support email lands in my inbox. That inbox is the real reason the cohort stops at fifty: it’s as many people as I can properly support and listen to.”
Daniel Dratschuk · founder, Essen, Germany
Founding Pianist
Locked for as long as you stay. $19/mo standard after the cohort fills.
What's included
- Per-note MIDI feedback: green when right, red where wrong
- Memory reviews scheduled on the forgetting curve
- From-the-top checkpoints that weld the piece together
- Bounded daily sessions with streak and practice heatmap
- The full curated catalog, plus request-and-vote for new pieces
- A 20-second setup soundcheck, right in the browser
Plain terms
- A 14-day free trial. No credit card required; if you do nothing, it simply ends.
- Monthly billing. No surprise annual charge, ever.
- A reminder email before the trial ends.
- Cancel in two clicks from inside the app.
- 30-day no-questions refund on your first paid month.
Questions before you start
Do I need a digital piano + MIDI?
Yes. Clef listens to your playing over MIDI so it can verify the right notes and advance practice at the right moment. Any digital piano or keyboard with a USB or MIDI connection works; acoustic-only setups aren't supported yet.
What computer and browser do I need?
A laptop or desktop running Chrome, Edge, or Firefox. Clef runs right in the browser with no install, but it needs the browser's MIDI support, which Safari doesn't provide. There's no mobile or tablet app.
What skill level is this for?
Late-beginner through advanced. If you can read sheet music and play simple pieces hands-together, Clef can take it from there — its job is the memorization, not teaching you to read notes from scratch.
How big is the catalog?
Eleven pieces right now, and that's deliberate: each one is engraved and checked by hand so the notation and per-note grading are exact. The range runs from Bach and two Petzold minuets through Für Elise, the Moonlight Sonata's first movement, three Chopin pieces, La Campanella, and Gymnopédie No. 1, plus a contemporary piece by Gibran Alcocer. If the piece you love isn't there, request it from inside the app; founding members' requests go to the top of the curation queue.
What if I already take lessons?
Clef complements lessons rather than replacing them. It's the daily practice engine between sessions, making sure what your teacher assigns actually sticks — so you show up having truly memorized it.
How much time per day does it take?
10–20 focused minutes is plenty. Clef tells you exactly which bars to play, so there's no warm-up deciding what to practice — short sessions add up fast.
What happens after the 14-day trial?
Nothing, unless you choose to subscribe. You start the trial without entering a card; to keep practicing after the 14 days, you add a payment method and continue at the founding member rate of $9/mo. If you do nothing, the trial simply ends and you're never charged. You'll get a reminder email before it ends.
Will my founder price change later?
No. The standard rate moves to $19/mo after the founding cohort, but founding members keep $9/mo for as long as their subscription stays active.
Can I cancel anytime?
Yes. Billing is handled through Stripe, and you can manage or cancel your subscription from account settings whenever you like.
A repertoire you can play, any day someone asks.
That’s the whole promise: learn the pieces you love faster, and keep them. Fifty founding seats, plain terms, and the keyboard you already own doing the listening.
Start Free Trial14-day free trial, no credit card required. Then the founding rate: $9/mo, locked for as long as you stay.