Piano Professor
Help Center

How can we help?

Quick-start tutorials first, then the full FAQ. Can't find it? Write to us; a real teacher reads every message.

Tutorials

🎓 Teachers: your first class session in 90 seconds

  1. Sign in at your dashboard and find Start a Class Session.
  2. Pick the lesson or drill, choose how it's assigned (Locked to that lesson, or Start From for a catch-up student), pick which class it's for (or none for a quick one-off), and choose when the code should expire: hours, days, a due date, or never.
  3. Click Create Session & Get Code. You get a code like PN-7QK2. Click the code for a fullscreen version the back row can read.
  4. Students go to the join page, type the code, and play. No student accounts, ever.
  5. Watch scores land on your dashboard live: score, accuracy, notes right, letter grade, stars. Export a watermarked CSV whenever you want.

🏫 Classes and rosters: students who keep their history all year

  1. In My Classes, add a class ("Period 1"), then add students by first name or label ("Maya R."). Never a last name required. Add a 4-digit PIN if you want only that student joining as that name.
  2. Assign work with + Add Assignment on the class page, or pick the class when starting a session. Students then pick their name from the list when they join instead of typing it, so your gradebook never fills with misspellings.
  3. Click the class to see every assignment and who's done it, in progress, or not started. Click a student's name for their full profile.
  4. Moving a student to another class keeps every grade they ever earned. Deleting a session code never deletes their work.

🎹 Parents and self-learners

  1. Start the risk-free 3-day trial: create your account and add a card on the same page. Nothing is charged today.
  2. Click Continue Learning and work through the lessons in order. Progress saves to your account, so you can switch devices freely.
  3. No piano yet? The computer keyboard plays every lesson, and you are genuinely learning to read music. When it clicks, any USB MIDI keyboard turns it into a real instrument.
  4. Several kids? Sign up as a teacher instead: each child gets their own name on your roster, and you see exactly who practiced.

🧑‍🎓 Students: joining class

  1. Go to the join page (there's an Enter Class Code button at the top of every page).
  2. Type the code from the board. If your class has a roster, pick your name from the list and enter your PIN if your teacher gave you one.
  3. Play the lesson. Your teacher sees your score the moment you finish. That's it: no account, no email, ever.

FAQ · Trial, pricing & billing

How does the risk-free 3-day trial work?

Create your account and add your card on the same page. Nothing is charged that day. You get full access for 3 days: every lesson, every drill, the whole dashboard. If you like it, just keep playing: on day 4 your card is charged once at the founder price and the course is yours for good. If you don't, cancel first and you pay nothing.

How do I cancel before I'm charged?

Sign in, look at your License card, and click Cancel · don't charge me. One click, no questions, and it works any time before day 4. Your trial keeps running until it ends either way.

What does it cost?

Founder pricing while founder seats last: Teacher $57 for the first 25 seats, then $83. Personal $47 for the first 25, then $72. One payment. At public launch this becomes $247 a year, and founders are grandfathered at $0 forever.

Is it a subscription?

No, and it never becomes one. You are charged exactly once. The Founder's Unlimited Perpetual License never renews and is yours for as long as Piano Professor exists.

Can I buy before day 4?

Yes. During your trial the License card shows Lock it in now: it charges the card you already saved, instantly, with nothing to retype.

What if my card is declined on day 4?

Nothing scary happens. The trial simply ends, your progress and data are kept, and the dashboard offers a checkout button where you can pay with any card whenever you're ready.

What is the Founders' Room?

The private community for founding members, teachers and learners alike: weekly calls, syllabus building, pedagogy and classroom management, help with your own playing if you are learning for yourself, curriculum sharing, gear picks, and a straight line to the founder for anything broken or wished for. Buying a personal license makes you a founder exactly like a teacher. After you buy, the invite appears on your dashboard. It isn't sold separately and it isn't open to the public.

FAQ · Accounts & signing in

Can I sign in with Google?

Yes. Use Sign in with Google on the sign-in page. If you originally signed up with email and password using the same email address, Google lands you in the same account automatically; nothing splits or duplicates.

I forgot my password.

If your account email is a Google address, just use Sign in with Google. Otherwise contact us and we'll get you back in.

Do my students need accounts?

Never. Students join with a class code and either a label they type or their name from your roster. No student accounts, no student emails, no passwords, by design.

FAQ · Classes, assignments & codes

What's the difference between a session code and an assignment?

The code is the temporary key that lets students in. It expires, it can be closed, reopened, deleted, and replaced. The assignment record is the permanent fact that your class was assigned that lesson, with every student's status and score. Deleting a code never touches the record or anyone's grades.

How long do codes last?

Whatever you choose when you create one: a number of hours or days, a specific due date and time, or no expiration at all. Expired codes move to Past sessions where you can reopen them (you'll be asked for a fresh expiration if the old one passed) or mint a new code for the same assignment.

I deleted a code by mistake. Did I lose the scores?

No. Nothing you delete ever deletes student work. For class assignments, the assignment and all scores stay in the class and on each student's profile; open the assignment and click New code for a fresh one attached to the same record. For one-off codes that weren't tied to a class, the scores move to Unfiled results, just below your Results table.

How do I show the code to a full classroom?

Click the code, anywhere it appears. It fills the screen big enough for the back row. Press Escape or click to dismiss.

What do Locked and Start From mean?

Locked: every student who joins works exactly that lesson. Start From: the student begins at that lesson and progresses at their own pace, which is the answer for a mid-year transfer: give them their own code starting at Lesson 1 and they build the same foundation while the class keeps moving.

What are PINs for?

An optional 4-digit code per student, set by you. With a PIN, only that student can join as that name, which answers "was it really them playing?" without creating accounts. Forgot one? You can see and reset it from the roster.

Can I remove a student or move them to another class?

Both, from the roster. Move keeps every grade they ever earned. Archive takes them off the roster but keeps their history in the class record.

FAQ · Grades, progress & exports

What does my dashboard show me?

Everything, live: score, accuracy, how many notes were actually right (18 of 20 tells you more than 90%), max combo, letter grade, and stars, per student per assignment. Click a class for the overview; click a student for their full profile of done and not-done work.

Can I get grades into my real gradebook?

One click exports a CSV with score, accuracy, notes right and wrong, grade, and stars per student. It's generated on the server and watermarked with your license, so it's the grade of record.

A student says they finished but I see nothing.

Scores post the moment a lesson ends. If the session expired before they finished, or they closed the tab mid-lesson, there may be no result. Their row shows IN PROGRESS if they joined but never finished. Reopen the code or mint a new one and let them run it again; every attempt is kept and the best one is shown.

How long is student work kept?

Results are kept for 365 days and then purged automatically, which is the retention promise in our privacy policy. Export the CSV any time for your permanent records.

FAQ · Student privacy & safety

What do you collect about students?

Only what you see: the label or first name the teacher chose, and lesson scores. No emails, no passwords, no birthdays, no last names required, no accounts. The data that doesn't exist can't leak, be sold, or be studied.

Can students talk to anyone through the app?

No. There is no chat, no messaging, no comments, no social anything. Nothing connects a student to the outside world.

Will this pass my district's review?

It was designed backwards from school-district privacy requirements: no student accounts, minimal data, automatic retention limits, audit logs, encryption in transit and at rest, and education-only use with no ads or trackers. The Privacy Policy and Terms are written to be handed to a privacy officer. Districts typically still require their own approval form for any new tool; we're glad to help with that paperwork.

FAQ · Equipment & technical

Do we need pianos?

No. Every lesson is playable on the computer keyboard, split so both hands play at once, and students genuinely learn to read music that way. When a real instrument arrives, any USB MIDI keyboard plugs straight in.

Does it work on Chromebooks?

Yes, that's the home turf: one lightweight page, no installs, no downloads, no updates, nothing to break.

Phones and tablets?

Touch keys work on any device, and small screens automatically show a narrower keyboard range. One quirk: iPads and iPhones don't allow browser MIDI, so USB keyboards need a computer or an Android device.

When does real staff notation start?

Unit 6, Lesson 27, on purpose. The first five units build keyboard geography, finger numbers, and rhythm first, exactly like a method book, so an early lesson with no staff on screen is working correctly.

What do PERFECT, GOOD, and OOPS mean?

Timing feedback on each note: PERFECT is on the beat, GOOD is close, OOPS is a wrong key or badly off time. Students always know instantly, which is why they replay lessons without being told.

Troubleshooting

"That code was not found."

Codes never contain 0, O, 1, I, or L, so read look-alikes accordingly. Check the code on the board character by character; it's PN-, a dash, then four characters.

"This class session has ended."

The code expired or the teacher closed it. Teachers: it's in Past sessions; reopen it or click New code on the assignment.

A student's name isn't in the join list.

They're on a different class's roster, or archived. Add them to the roster of the class the code belongs to, or un-archive them, and have them re-enter the code.

The card form doesn't appear at signup.

An ad blocker or school network filter can block Stripe's secure form. The page falls back automatically to Stripe's own payment page, so you can always finish; or try another network or browser.

"Your free trial has already been used."

Each account gets one trial, ever. You can claim your founder seat from the dashboard's checkout button any time.

Contact us

Email: iwillfindawayormakeone@gmail.com

You're writing to John David Maybury, the teacher who built this, not a ticket queue. During the school year expect an answer in the evening; if something is broken mid-class, say so in the subject line and it goes to the front.

Founding members: the Founders' Room is the fastest line of all; bug reports and wish lists posted there get fixed on the build nights.