Chord Cadenza

Extract chords from a MIDI file and play!

Ever wanted to play along to your favourite piece of music, but don't have the musical skills to do it? Well, now you can!

Just find a MIDI file on the internet (there are over 100,000 of them out there, covering just about every piece of music ever written). Then let Chord Cadenza find the chords, which it will use to help you play alongside the MIDI file or an equivalent MP3 file using your MIDI or PC keyboard.

Introduction

Chord Cadenza is a free (open source) app that helps you to play and improvise chords whilst a MIDI file or audio source is being played. It does this by updating a rolling display to map the chord notes to a piano keyboard. It can also dynamically assign notes or chords to keys on a MIDI or PC keyboard by synchronizing with a MIDI file or audio file (e.g. MP3).

Features

MIDI Sequencer with track display, mute, solo, patch, vol, pan, etc.
Generate keys and chords from a MIDI file
Detect chords, beats, and tuning from an audio file (MP3)
Edit keys, chords, and time signatures
Read lyrics from a karaoke MIDI file (.kar), or create and edit lyrics from scratch
Display chords on a vertical piano roll to facilitate playing and improvisation
Display solfa or pitch notation
Output to soundcard (using soundfonts) or to a MIDI synth (hardware or software)
ASIO and non-ASIO sound drivers supported
Record and save audio from soundcard input or loopback
Play with a MIDI keyboard or a PC keyboard
Multiple playmodes to allow for different levels of MIDI keyboard skills
Synchronise and play along with MIDI files (.mid, .kar) or audio files (.mp3)
Modify chords on-the-fly with the keyboard
Play along with any audio stream or other musicians.
No need to read musical staff notation
Musical keyboard skills not required

About

Chord Cadenza is distributed under the MIT Open Source license. Copyright Derrick Maule 2025.
It is written, maintained, and distributed by Derrick Maule, as a personal project. There is no affiliation to any other Company.
Sources and other info is available at SourceForge
Audio file support is provided by the BASS libraries at un4seen.com and ManagedBass at github.com/ManagedBass/Home.
Chord, beat and tuning detection from audio files is provided by various contributors from the Centre for Digital Music, Queen Mary, University of London.
The supplied starter soundfont (TimGM6mb) is courtesy Tim Brechbill.
The sample audio files are distributed under a Creative Commons license.

Privacy Policy

The application does not collect, store, or transmit any personal information.