AudioTheory Piano Keys News

Just a small patch today to address the following:

• Selecting Piano Exercises from the window nav dropdown now closes open popups/ inspectors
  
• Loaded preset name no longer shows in ear training mode
  
• Fixed a situation where the dropdowns for the scale inspector could show incorrectly
  
• Fix for B displaying as H when German note name language is selected
  
• Line style updated for ear training mode
  

The biggest update yet is here for AudioTheory Piano Keys. It adds the following new features:

[h3]Chord Inversions[/h3]
The double arrow icon below the bottom right of the piano chords was already here, but before it would just cycle the chord up an octave. Now it cycles the chord up one note at a time, so you can see the inverted positions for the chord too.



[h3]Chord Inspector[/h3]
Next to this button is a new info icon. This brings up the chord inspector, where you can find out more about the specific chord in question. Here you can see the chord degrees, the chord type, and the movable do labels alongside a larger representation of the standard chord diagram.

The edit button exists here too, meaning chords can be swapped directly from the inspector, allowing for focused practice on an individual chord as an alternative to the multi-chord views found elsewhere in the application.



[h3]Scale Inspector[/h3]
The same feature, but for scales! Learn more about each scale with the scale degrees, movable do labels, Roman numerals (where applicable) and standard note information all in one place.

[h3]Extended Scale Library[/h3]
The number of scales within the library has been increased substantially. There are new tabs for Jazz, Exotic, and Japanese. In total, 28 new types of scales have been added in.



[h3]Plus some more smaller changes and fixes:[/h3]

• New options for scale playback. Play scales ascending, descending, or both. Scales now only play across a single octave, rather than just continuing for the full length of the keyboard.
  
• Theoretical chords are now properly supported in the main piano view, and will load as contextually appropriate with the selected scale.
  
• Improved chord dragging within the main application view. Now you can diagonally drag chords at greater speeds.
  
• The 'Mode' and 'Window' dropdowns in the nav has been consolidated into a single 'Window' option. This simplifies navigation by combining the different views into one place, and options to access the chord and scale inspectors have been added here too. This is now where the Piano Training Exercises can be found.
  
• The Tick icons have been restored – this indicates when all the correct notes in a chord are being played on the main Keyboard.
  
• Movable Do can now display for chords (using sharps and flats) in cases where one or more of the notes are not in the current scale. There are still instances where no applicable reference is possible (this is the fun of music theory), and these are noted as such.
  
• The position of the play button has been standardised between chords and scales.
  
• Various small design and colour changes have been made across the different themes.
  
• Auto-loading chords with scales has been streamlined a bit. Pentatonic scales now just load the standard set of major chords. Melodic scales no longer auto-load chords, and a message now displays at the top of the screen when a set of chords are loaded on scale change.
  
• German note names have been added as an option within the application settings. When applied, B will display as H and B♭ will display as B.
  
• The cycle chord button now rotates, just like in AudioTheory Guitars!
  

[p]Very small update to fix Unity security issue CVE-2025-59489. More info on this is provided by Steam here.[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][p]A new update is here for AudioTheory Piano Keys. It includes two main new features that are designed to work together to give you greater control over how sharp and flat notes display.[/p][p][/p][h2]Automatic/ Manual Sharps & Flats[/h2][p][/p][p]There's a new dropdown in the application options that lets you select between two different sets of rules that determine how the application handles sharps and flats.[/p][p][/p][h3]Auto set based on scale[/h3][p]This is the default option, and retains the existing method of automatically showing a sharp or a flat based on context. The advantage of this mode is that it will prioritise practical scales over theoretical ones, for example showing D♭ major but C♯ minor within the scale library.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]As before, you can then click on the sharp/ flat note name in the note selector (bottom left) to change a specific note if required.[/p][p][/p][p]However, the addition of the theoretical scales means that now if the root note is swapped then the whole scale will update. E.g. if you load C♯ minor and then click on the C♯ note, it will change the scale to D♭ minor.[/p][p][/p][h3]Manually configure[/h3][p]This is a new alternative method of handling sharps and flats that lets you specify the default value for each of the accidentals.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]These can still be swapped by clicking on the note name in the selector, and notes will still update to the correct state when a scale preset is loaded, but reverting from a scale preset (selecting the 'all' or 'none' buttons) will apply the default values specified in the options.[/p][p][/p][p]This mode is useful if you want to use theoretical scales. For example, setting the default display for C♯/D♭ to D♭ means that the theoretical D♭ minor scale will display in the scale selector and scale library (whereas in automatic mode C♯ minor is given priority).[/p][p][/p][h2]Theoretical Scales[/h2][p][/p][p]The changes to how sharps and flats can display opens up many new situations where theoretical notes and scales come into play. The application has been updated to properly support these, meaning scale highlighting works with double sharps, double flats and enharmonic notes such as C♭ and B♯.[/p][p][/p][p]Theoretical scales have also been added to the scale library, although to keep things simple scales are still presented in groups of 12. The 12 you'll see are determined by the sharp/ flat options described above.[/p][p][/p][h2]Other changes[/h2][p][/p]

• [p]The default display settings have been optimised for Steam Deck. The application runs in windowed mode as standard, on Steam Deck this would result in the wrong resolution being applied. It could previously be fixed by swapping to fullscreen, but now it displays correctly by default.[/p]
• [p]The note selector now references the sharp/ flat state of accidentals when indicating a scale match (appending the scale name with an asterisk if the scale has been modified). E.g. G, A, B, C, D, E, and G♭ is now recognised as a modification of G major.[/p]
• [p]Clicking on a sharp/flat name in the chord library no longer changes it globally. The behaviour is now standardised with the scale library; in both scenarios clicking on the name changes the display of that mini-keyboard instance only.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue with the scale type label not displaying correctly on certain scale sets[/p]
• [p]Dual scale highlighting now matches the sharp/ flat display of the root note. The scale highlighting colours for the relevant theoretical scales are now used as appropriate.[/p]

[p][/p][h2]In other news...[/h2][p][/p][p]Dracula's Cave now has its own dedicated Steam publisher page. The full range of AudioTheory software and also the games I've released can now be found in one convenient location.[/p]

Very small update to fix a couple of minor display issues, including a situation where custom colours would inadvertently default to light blue for all notes apart from C.