The Music Stem / Questions and Answers
The Music Stem
Answers about the music, the tools and your work on The Music Stem.
Search the questions in the appGetting Started
What the site is, who it is for, and where to begin.
A place to learn, hear, play and write music in your browser. It teaches three traditions, Western, Hindustani and Jazz, alongside ear training, instruments, composition, StemLab, practice exams and audition practice.
Anyone who wants to understand music from the inside, at any age, from a first lesson to grade exams and auditions. Each instrument course begins with its first exercise, and its list shows every exercise ahead.
No. The first course, Sound and Listening, starts with what you hear, and the Ear Lab works by ear alone. When a term is new, The Music Dictionary explains it in one line.
Open Courses and try the first lesson of Sound and Listening. For a young beginner, or anyone new to music, start with Piano and keyboard, Lesson 1. If you already play, open Instruments and choose your instrument.
Open Courses · Piano and keyboard, Lesson 1 · Open Instruments
Yes. There are no deadlines or schedules. A clock runs only where you choose one. Examples are Exam mode in the practice exams and the recording clock in interview practice.
Yes. Instruments has courses for piano, guitar, bass, drums and voice, plus rhythm and Hindustani paths, and you can move between them. Auditions adds strings, woodwinds and brass.
Yes, the site runs in the browser on phones, tablets and computers. To connect a MIDI keyboard or digital piano, use Chrome or Edge on a computer. Safari, iPhone and iPad do not support piano connections.
No. The Music Stem is an independent educational platform. It is not affiliated with any exam board, school or conservatory, and its practice exams and audition exercises are not official materials.
Courses and Practice
How the lessons, the ear work and the feedback fit together.
The three traditions (Western, Hindustani and Jazz), then courses in listening and theory, instruments and voice, harmony through production, and playing together. Every lesson comes with its listening and practice.
Yes, as one of the three traditions beside Western and Jazz. The Indian course is Hindustani, the classical music of North India. Notes are swaras from a movable Sa, rhythm follows the cycle of a tala, and the Riyaz Tanpura and the Ear Lab sound Sa on a tanpura.
Not yet. The Indian course teaches Hindustani music. Carnatic music, the classical music of South India, has no course here yet. The Hindustani course page has a short note for Carnatic musicians on how the names, talas and ragas correspond.
Yes. The Riyaz Tanpura plays its four strings around the Sa you choose until you stop it. The first string can be Pa, Ma or Ni. It is free and needs no microphone.
Yes. The Tala Clap-Along plays the tabla theka for Dadra, Keherwa, Rupak, Jhaptal, Ektal or Tintal and lights each matra with its bol. It shows when to clap, when to wave and where sam falls, at a slow, medium or fast speed, with a tanpura underneath if you like. It is free and simple enough for a child with a parent.
Yes. Courses covers pitch, keys, intervals and harmony and then form, arranging and improvisation. The practice exams take theory further, from ABRSM and Trinity grades to AP Music Theory.
Use The Music Dictionary, inside Courses. Each term is explained in one line, and you can search it or browse by subject and letter. Then hear the idea at work in a lesson.
The Ear Lab sounds the tonic, plays one note and asks you to identify its place, from do to ti or Sa to Ni. Aural Tests has practice papers for the ABRSM aural tests, Grades 1 to 8. The Ear Test finds the smallest difference in pitch and timing you can hear.
Yes, in Auditions. You read a passage you have not seen and play it on the on-screen keys, the computer keys or a MIDI keyboard. The feedback points to the bars and beats to fix, and a fresh passage shows whether the fix held.
The Companion on the Courses page suggests one next step from your lesson tests, Ear Lab answers and aural tests. In the Ear Lab, the notes you confuse come back first. After a practice exam, the weakest section is offered again in Study mode.
Yes, on what can be measured. Instruments shows where each note landed against the beat, in words rather than a score. To fix a spot, slow the speed and play it again. Sight-reading points to the first bar to practice slowly.
No. The site measures timing, pitch and the notes you play. Expression, interpretation, posture and technique need a teacher’s eyes and ears, so treat automated feedback as a learning aid.
Yes. Your finished lessons are checked off in this browser. My Conservatory shows your test results, saved music and certificates.
A practice room for a single tune, in Western, Hindustani or Jazz. You can sing it back and see each note marked on the staff, play it back on a digital piano or your computer keys, write a tune you hear (melodic dictation), or set the opening of your own song on the staff. Your tunes can be saved to My Conservatory. The microphone is read in your browser and nothing is uploaded.
Instruments and Composition
Playing, writing and taking music apart.
Courses for piano, guitar, bass, drums and voice, played with a band. Each exercise is a loop: hear it, take your turn, and see where your notes landed. Cantabile Hall, the grand piano room, is here too.
The grand piano room: a recorded grand piano with every key sampled. Play it with the mouse, the computer keys or a MIDI keyboard. Follow a piece as its notes fall onto the keys, sing along, or record a take and download it as a MIDI file.
Yes, and it is free. In Chrome or Edge on a computer, plug the keyboard in by USB and press Connect your keyboard. It plays with its velocity, its sustain pedal and its soft pedal.
Yes, if it has a USB TO HOST port, MIDI sockets or Bluetooth MIDI. Use Chrome or Edge on a computer. A piano that accepts notes from a computer can play the pieces itself, or you follow the lit keys.
Yes, for singing in Instruments, the aural tests and audition practice, and for recording in Music Studio. It turns on only when you allow it, and its sound is analyzed in your browser. Headphones keep the band out of your recording.
Yes. Music Studio exports a song as a WAV file or as MIDI, opens MIDI files, and downloads a backup you can open later. Cantabile Hall downloads a take as MIDI. You can also keep your music in My Conservatory.
The Songwriting Room takes a song from its first motif to a finished mix. Theme and Variations shows how one change transforms a piece. Music Studio is a multitrack studio to write, record and mix.
StemLab takes a song apart so you can hear each part alone, without it or slower, and see its pitch or its hits against the beat. Bring your own songs, hear each part, and measure your own playing to the millisecond and the cent. Its tool shelf holds the Music Calculator and the Music Editor, which cuts, tunes, shapes and masters a recording, the demo song or your own.
Yes. In Build a Song you can sing or hum a short idea. It is written on the staff in the song's key. You can change any note, then add chords and grow it into a song. The microphone is used only in your browser and nothing is saved or sent. It is free.
Yes. The Music Editor measures your recording and tells you how loud it is for streaming, how close its loudest point is to clipping, how well it is tuned, and its tempo and key. The file stays on your device, and you can keep editing and export it.
Exams and Auditions
Practice papers and audition skills, and what they are not.
ABRSM theory Grades 1 to 8 and aural tests, Trinity theory Grades 1 to 5, RCM theory Levels 5 to 7, AP Music Theory, Praxis Music (5113) and UGC–NET Music. Each practice exam runs to the end, with its answers explained.
Yes. Exam mode runs the clock and marks your answers at the end. Study mode has no clock and checks each answer at once, with the reason behind every choice.
No. They are timed practice, written independently in the form of the real exam's sections. They do not reproduce or predict official questions, and no exam board sponsors or endorses them.
Yes. Auditions has sight-reading, rhythm, ear skills, improvisation, interview questions, prepared studies and mock auditions, for instruments from piano and voice to trumpet and drums. Choose a pathway to see which skills may be relevant.
No. Pathways such as Berklee, UK conservatoires and Texas All-State summarize what each publishes and link to its own pages. They are general guidance, not endorsement. Requirements change each year, so follow the institution’s current instructions.
Yes. On the Berklee pathway the mock follows what Berklee's own audition pages describe: a prepared piece of three to five minutes, improvisation over a blues, sight-reading, ear work with call and response and pitch matching, and interview questions on Berklee's topics. Where Berklee does not say something, such as the order of the parts, the page says so. The site is not affiliated with Berklee and cannot promise a result.
Treat it as the real thing. It gives fresh material in one sitting, with feedback at the end. Play straight through, read the feedback and then practice the weakest part before the next mock.
No. Practice can help you prepare, but results depend on your performance and on decisions made by exam boards and institutions.
Privacy and Your Work
Where your work is kept, and what leaves your device.
Yes. Everything on The Music Stem is open to everyone, with no card and no sign-up: every course with its lesson tests and certificates, the Ear Lab and the aural papers, Cantabile Hall, the instrument courses, Composition and Music Studio, StemLab, the full practice exams and audition practice.
No. There are no sign-ups or passwords. Your work is kept in this browser, and your lesson tests and certificates are linked to it by one cookie.
Yes, in this browser on this device. It does not follow you to another browser, and clearing your browser data removes it. In Music Studio, download a backup to keep your own copy.
Only you hear your recordings. Microphone sound, recordings and songs you open in StemLab stay in your browser. Our server receives your lesson test answers and results, linked to a random identifier, and the name you give for a certificate.
You earn one for each course when every lesson in it is complete. It records completion, not a grade. Anyone with its code can verify it and see the name and course shown on it.
Clear your browser data to remove everything kept in this browser. To have information held on our server removed, corrected or sent to you, email info@themusicstem.com.
The tool cannot hear you or your keyboard until you allow it. Allow the microphone or MIDI devices from the address bar and then try again. The on-screen keys, computer keys and tap pad work without permission.
Email info@themusicstem.com. Tell us the page or exercise, your device and browser, and what happened.
Yes. A child sees music lessons, listening games and practice. There are no ads, no chat and no account to make. Sound from the microphone stays on the device. A young beginner can follow New to music? Start here on the homepage: Piano and keyboard, Lesson 1, which finds C beside the two black keys, then a rhythm to tap back, then the first ear game in the Ear Lab. The Tala Clap-Along is there for more rhythm. Younger children do best with a parent nearby to read the instructions with them. Children under 13 should use the site with a parent's consent.
Piano and keyboard, Lesson 1 · Open the Ear Lab · Read the Privacy Policy · Read the Terms of Use
Write to info@themusicstem.com. Tell us the page you were on.