How to Play the Omnichord

The instrument has four areas:

• The top bar: a display of the current chord, rhythm and tempo, a light that blinks on each beat, and the Rec button.
• The chord buttons: 27 buttons in three rows. The top row is major, the middle row minor and the bottom row seventh chords.
• The strum plate: a strip of 13 strings that play the notes of whichever chord you pressed last.
• The controls: faders labelled Chord, Harp, Sustain, Tempo and Beat, six rhythm pads, Start, the Chord: Hold/Stab switch, Memory and MIDI. On a phone they are split between a Sound tab and a Rhythm tab.

Below the instrument sits the practice bar, where you pick a song to learn. More on that later.

Browsers stay silent until you interact with a page, so tap or click anywhere on the panel once to wake the audio. Then press the C button: it is in the top row, fourth from the left. You will hear a soft, organ-like chord with a low bass note underneath, and the display will show C.

Hold the button and the chord keeps sounding; let go and it stops. Now try G, one button to the right, and F, one to the left. Those three chords alone carry a huge number of songs.

The strum plate is the sound people recognise. Each of its 13 strings plays one note from your chord, from low at one end to high at the other, so there is no wrong place to touch it. The plate keeps the last chord you pressed even after you let go of the button, which means you can press a chord, lift your finger and still strum.

Slow sweep

Drag a finger or the mouse steadily from the low end to the high end over about a second. Each string rings in turn, like a harp glissando: ideal for intros, endings and quiet verses.

Quick flick

Brush across a short stretch of the plate in a fraction of a second. Every string you cross still sounds, even on a very fast flick, and the notes bunch together into a bright sparkle. Flicks on the beat work well over a rhythm.

Speed controls volume

The faster you move, the louder the strings play; a single tap lands in the middle. Use gentle sweeps for soft passages and quicker strokes when the song lifts.

Memory

Turn Memory on and a chord keeps ringing after you lift your finger, until you press a different chord or press the same button again. Most players leave it on: one tap per chord, and your hands are free to strum.

Sustain

The Sustain fader sets how long each string rings after it is struck, from 0.4 to 3 seconds. One to two seconds suits flowing arpeggios; push toward three for slow ballads, and pull it down for fast strums that would otherwise blur.

Mixing the faders

Chord sets the volume of the held chord pad, Harp the volume of the strum plate, and Beat the volume of the drums and bass when a rhythm is playing. A good starting balance is Harp high and Chord a little lower, so the strings sit on top and the pad fills in quietly underneath.

Open the rhythm controls and pick one of the six pads: Rock, Waltz, Slow Rock, Latin, Foxtrot or Swing. Set the Tempo fader anywhere from 60 to 200 BPM, then press Start. Drums begin and a bass line follows whatever chord you press, changing as soon as you change chords.

Hold or Stab

The Chord: Hold/Stab button decides what the chord pad does while the rhythm runs. Hold keeps the chord sounding continuously, like an organ under the beat. Stab silences the long chord and plays it as short hits in the rhythm's pattern instead, which sounds tighter and leaves more room for the strum plate. Press Start again (it reads Stop while playing) to end the rhythm.

Let It Be uses just four chords, all next to each other or close by, and it is charted in its original key of C. On a computer keyboard they are four letters you can rest your fingers on.

• C: top row, key R
• G: top row, key T
• Am: middle row, key J
• F: top row, key E

1. Turn Memory on and set Sustain to about 1.5 seconds.
2. Play the verse pattern slowly, two chords per bar: C then G, Am then F, C then G, F then C. Repeat it until the changes feel automatic.
3. Add one slow sweep on each new chord. Do not worry about speed yet.
4. When the changes are smooth, choose Rock, set the tempo to around 72 BPM and press Start.

Open the Let It Be chord chart →

Pick a song in the practice bar and the next chord to press lights up on the panel, with the chord after it shown alongside. Choose one of two modes, then press Practice.

Follow

Follow waits for you. The song only moves on when you press the right chord, so you can take as long as you need over each change. Start every new song here.

Play-along

Play-along sets the song's own rhythm and tempo, counts you in and moves with the beat. Each chord change is scored, and you see your total at the end.

If a song has been moved to a different key to fit the 27 buttons, the practice bar tells you the key it is played in and the original key, and lists any chords that were simplified.

Press Rec in the top bar, play, then press it again to stop. You can listen to the take straight away, then download it or discard it. Recordings are saved as WebM or M4A depending on your browser, each take can run for up to five minutes before it stops on its own, and nothing is uploaded anywhere.

• Hold the phone upright. In portrait the chord buttons sit on top and the strum plate runs sideways underneath, easy to sweep with a thumb.
• Use two fingers: one holds a chord, the other strums. Every finger is tracked on its own, so both work at the same time.
• Switch between the Sound and Rhythm tabs to reach the faders and rhythm pads.
• If you hear nothing on an iPhone, tap the panel once, turn the volume up and check the silent switch.

On a laptop the letter rows play the chord buttons (Q to O major, A to L minor, Z to the full stop seventh) and the number row plays the strings, so your left hand holds chords while your right hand strums. Press ? to show every key on screen.

The MIDI button cycles through Off, Strum and Chords. In Strum mode a MIDI keyboard plays the strings; in Chords mode its keys press the chord buttons. MIDI needs a browser with Web MIDI, such as Chrome or Edge.

See every keyboard and MIDI mapping →

That covers the whole panel. Turn Memory on, press C, sweep the plate, then try the four Let It Be chords.

Open the instrument and start playing →