Mastering Jazz Standards

Play the standard —
without the chart.

For players who can read the changes but lose the tune without them. Open a standard — or drop in your iReal Pro chart — and walk it chord by chord: roman numerals, functions, voicings, chord scales, substitutions. Every note you see, you hear. Then hide the chart and play it with the band.

Analyze my first tune See how it works Join the waitlist

Free during the beta · Invitation only — sign in with your account · Your charts sync across your devices

Paint Music is in private beta, open to invited testers. Expect rough edges and things that move between visits — telling me what's wrong, confusing or missing is the point of this phase. Not on the list yet? Join the waitlist above.

The Harmonize view on Autumn Leaves, on the dark stage: B♭Δ7 in focus with the next two chords, their degrees, the reason it falls a fifth, and five substitutions offered below
Autumn Leaves on the dark stage — the tonic, where it goes, and what could stand in for it

The problem

You can follow the changes.
Can you play the tune?

You've read charts for years. But switch the tablet off, and the tune is gone.

At a session, someone takes the iPad away — and your fingers freeze. They're wired to letters on a screen, not to your ear.

Chord-scale theory told you which scale “fits”. That's reciting the alphabet, not forming words.

And you already know what would fix it.

Your teacher told you. So did the video, and the book before it. Guide tones through the bridge. That voicing in all twelve keys. Learn the head away from the page.

Then the week happens. You sit down, you open the chart, and forty minutes later you have played eight tunes and worked on none of them.

That isn't discipline failing. It's arithmetic. Playing a tune answers back in the same second; a drill answers in three weeks — and the feeling of a good session is a famously unreliable instrument. The pleasant hour is the one that teaches you least, and it feels like the opposite.

More repetitions of the same reading habit won't fix it. At some point you're not practicing any more — you're repeating.

The answer

Understand the architecture.
Then take the chart away.

Explained like a
harmony textbook.

As simple as a
play-along app.

Think of it as the theory-literate practice partner between lessons: it tells you why, your teacher tells you how you sounded. Not another thing to know — the last thing you learned, turned into ten minutes you can actually start. What it tells you is one hearing, computed by rules it names: the four reference tunes are checked against the theory texts, the rest analyzed best-effort.

Paint Music shows you each chord's job — its roman numeral, its function, the key it lives in — as one connected story: a ii–V–I is one unit, not three scales to memorize. And when you think you know a tune, it hides the analysis and asks you. You answer, reveal, rate yourself. Theory that ends in an exercise, every time — and when you have twenty minutes, you name the time and click today's blocks together from the exercises the piece already has.

One line in, three strands out

Three ways into the same tune

The Harmonize view: E♭Δ7 in focus as the subdominant, the ii–V that follows bracketed as one unit, and the footnote naming it a pivot into G minor

01 · HARMONIZE

Every chord, explained in plain English

Roman numeral, function, local key — with switchable hearings, because a real tune allows more than one reading. ii–V–I detected as one unit, arrows and brackets between the chords, Barry Harris relatives, a clickable glossary.

And what else the bar could be: secondary dominants, tritone subs, backdoor, borrowed chords — each proposed relative to where the music is going, one tap away from the chord it replaces.

Understand Autumn Leaves → Try a tritone sub →
The Comp view: B♭Δ7 as Drop 2 on both staves, with the ninth taken as a color and the footnote explaining the grip

02 · COMP

What is drawn is what sounds

Real engraving on a grand staff, each note spelled — letter and accidental — by its degree in the chord. Five voicing styles — Standard, Drop 2, Shell, Left-hand voicing, Upper structure. Tap the chord: you hear exactly the voicing you see.

See the voicings →
The Improvise view on D7♭9, the dominant of the minor key: its scale written out on the staff, chord tones and tensions colored apart, the reason beside it, and the alternatives — the altered scale among them — one tap away

03 · IMPROVISE

The scale that fits — and why

Not one scale per symbol: the mode of the local key for a diatonic chord, the altered scale for an altered dominant, each with its reason — and the alternatives beside it to compare, pentatonic and blues shapes among them. Chord tones and tensions colored apart on the staff, every chord playable. Loop a few bars and write a lick of your own over them.

Hear the scales →

Practice

Theory that ends in an exercise

The exercise: the analysis is gone from the page — the form strip has lost its colors — and the app asks how many key centers this hearing visits

IN ALL THREE VIEWS

  • Ask it back. Analyze a whole piece and the analysis leaves the page — not grayed out, gone — while the app asks for it back, chord by chord. A wrong guess costs nothing; the reason appears.
  • Play it from memory. Cover the chart in stages until the tune is yours.
  • Your own exercises. Set up a screen the way you want to practice it — the view, what it shows, the sound, the tempo — and “Save this screen”. It waits for you in “Your exercises”.
  • Your own licks. Type a line, hear it, and practice it in all twelve keys over its own changes. They live in “Your licks”.
  • A session for the time you have. “Plan a session”: say how long you have, pick the blocks, begin.
Test myself on a tune →

The band

And when you want to play it

A band that plays with you — piano, upright bass and drums, swing or bossa, a fader for every track. And unlike a play-along app, it plays beside the analysis, not instead of it.

Trust

Free during the beta.
Your charts stay yours.

Free, no card

Free during the beta — no card. The beta is invitation-only, so it does take an account: it is how a place is held for you, and how it can be given back.

Works at the piano

The analysis, the drills and the practice log all run in your browser and, once you have signed in, keep working offline at the piano — nothing needs the network to work.

Yours to take back

The account carries your work between your devices: your practice log, your own exercises, your lick cards, and the charts you import. It stays yours to take back — one button writes the lot to a file you can load again elsewhere, and deleting your account removes it from the app; what is left in backups and deletion records ages out on the schedule in our privacy notice.

Computed, not generated

What the app tells you about harmony is computed from your chart, not written by a language model — the same chart gets the same answer every time. In the app, usage measurement runs only if you agree: you can decline it outright, and withdraw later under “Account”.

I built Paint Music because I was the player in the pain section above. I could read any chart and play no tune. This is the tool I practice with now: every chord explained, every explanation sounding, every claim testable with the analysis hidden. It's a beta and it's young — telling me what's wrong or missing is exactly what this phase is for.
— Clemens, pianist & builder · write me
  • Upright bass and drums beside the piano
  • Swing or bossa
  • Licks through all twelve keys
  • Barry Harris's sixth-diminished scale
  • A library you can browse by key, form or era

Two sides of the lesson

Right for the teacher.
Useful for the student.

  • The teacher asks · Bertram

    “Is it right?”

    • Voicings a player would really reach for — played and judged at the piano.
    • The names musicians use. One name for one thing.
    • Where two hearings are both right, you get both — and switch.

  • The student asks · Clemens

    “Does it help me tonight?”

    • Every chord explained in plain English — and you hear it.
    • Theory that ends in an exercise, not in a paragraph.
    • Hide the chart and find out whether you really know the tune.

Bertram Liebmann is a jazz pianist and bassist — and Clemens’ piano teacher. Clemens brings the learner’s side and years of building products. Every feature has to answer both questions.

Hear Bertram play Write to Clemens

Questions

Fair questions

Do I need iReal Pro?

No. 110 standards with full analysis are built in — the four reference tunes checked against the theory texts, the rest analyzed best-effort. If you do use iReal Pro, paste a share link or drop the .html export and Paint Music walks your own charts.

Does it work on my phone?

This page does; the app itself is laid out as a fixed sheet for tablet and desktop — it's meant to stand on the piano. It opens on a phone, but small. Tablet or laptop is its intended home.

Is it really free?

During the beta, yes — free, no card. The beta is invitation-only, so it does take an account — what the account carries between your devices is your work: the log, your own exercises, your licks and your charts.

I don't play piano — is it for me?

The voicings and sounds are piano-first. The Harmonize, Comp and Improvise views are about the tune, not the instrument — useful to anyone who reads changes. But if you want instrument-specific fingerings or horn transpositions: not here.

Does it replace my teacher?

No. Paint Music explains and asks; it can't hear you play — there's no microphone or MIDI input. It is what happens between lessons: it can tell you why a chord does what it does, and it cannot tell you how you sounded doing it. Only your teacher can.

Your first tune, tonight.

Hear Autumn Leaves, name each chord's job, then hide the chart and play it — fifteen minutes is enough to start. 110 standards with full analysis are waiting. Free during the beta — no download and no card, an invitation and an account. It runs in your browser and, once you have signed in, keeps working offline at the piano.

Analyze Autumn Leaves now Join the waitlist

Or start with Blue Bossa All The Things You Are Fly Me To The Moon