Draw freely on the canvas. Horizontal position sets when a note plays. Higher marks make higher notes.
Each color plays its own instrument: Keys, Pluck, Bell, Marimba, Flute, Strings, Chime, Bass, 8-bit, or Organ. Overlapping lines make chords. Each stroke keeps its instrument.
The dot buttons add Bass, Drums, and Arpeggio. Turn them on separately or together. Their colored dots show the rhythm below your drawing. They follow the key and tempo and are included in exports.
Choose a Shape and drag to preview its outline. Circles and ovals play their upper and lower curves together. Symmetry adds a phrase in reverse, inverted pitches, or four reflected copies. One Undo removes the whole gesture.
Choose a Drawing to try mountains, trees, or a sailboat. Undo restores your previous loop. Grid editor shows the same drawing as colored cells. Snap pitch works in both views: Whole uses scale notes, Half uses semitones, Quarter uses quarter tones, and Free leaves the pen unsnapped. Snapping affects new marks. Each stroke keeps its pitch resolution. Timing sets the column size; Free uses 32 columns per eight beats. Switching views keeps your lines and sound. Hover or play to see dots where the scan line crosses your drawing.
Surprise me in the Drawing menu replaces the current loop with a ready-made musical drawing. Undo brings back your previous drawing. Choose Brush to erase part of a line, or Whole object to remove an entire line or shape. Pause holds your place; Play resumes and Stop returns to the beginning.
Use Erase to cut a line, or Undo to go back. Timing changes the rhythm without changing your drawing. Guides show the notes in the current scale.
Add loop creates another picture. Duplicate and the arrows build your sequence. Turn on Song mode and press Play to hear all loops in order. At 120 BPM, an eight-beat loop lasts four seconds. Save song keeps all editable pictures and backing parts in a file. WAV exports audio. MIDI exports notes and instrument channels. Completed edits save automatically on this iPad. My Songs holds your pictures. Use Backup in Grown-up settings to keep a copy in Files.
Keyboard: P for pen, E for erase, space for playback, Ctrl/Cmd Z for undo. Focus the canvas and use arrows to move, Enter to place a note, or Shift plus arrows to draw.
Save keeps your drawings. Audio lets you share the sound. MIDI saves the notes.
Setting up offline play…
To install: open this address in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen. Open the installed app online until it says Ready offline.
Close other Music Canvas windows before loading an update.
Songs save on this device. Safari and the Home Screen app may have separate libraries. Backup and Restore move songs between them. Clearing website data removes local songs.
Back it up first if you want to keep it.