Virtual melodica

What is a melodica?

A melodica (also called a pianica or blow organ) is a small keyboard you blow into: a key opens a metal reed, and your breath makes it sound. It is played in schools, in jazz, reggae and dub, and by anyone who wants a piano they can carry. Because the air does nothing until a key is pressed, how you blow is half the instrument — softer and darker, harder and brighter.

How to play this one

Tap Play with my breath and allow the microphone. Tomus then takes about five seconds to learn your room: a moment of quiet, one note it plays itself (so it knows what its own sound does to your microphone), and one steady blow. After that, a note sounds only while you blow and hold a key — exactly like a real melodica, where the air does nothing until a key opens a reed.

Keep blowing and change keys: the melody moves without a new breath. Blow softer and the sound gets quieter and darker; blow harder and it gets louder and brighter. To repeat a note, take a new breath or say a short “tu” into the microphone — the way wind players separate notes.

On a phone, hold the bottom edge (where the microphone is) a few centimetres from your mouth and blow across it. Headphones help: the instrument then cannot hear itself.

Your microphone stays on your device

Breath control measures only how loud the low rumble of your breath is, many times a second, inside your browser. No sound is recorded, stored or sent anywhere, and the microphone turns off when you leave the page or press Microphone off. Your browser shows its own indicator while it is on.

Without a microphone

The Blow button plays the same instrument: hold it and press keys. Touch higher on the button to blow harder. On a computer, hold Space to blow (Shift + Space for full strength) and play the keys from the keyboard: Z–, for C4–C5 and T–] for C5–C6, the same layout as the virtual piano. Arrow keys move between keys and Enter holds the one in focus.

The keyboard

Two octaves, C4 to C6. A student melodica usually has 32 keys, F3 to C6; on a phone a row that long would make every key too thin for a finger, so Tomus keeps the two octaves every song here needs. On a narrow screen they are stacked: the lower octave below, the upper above.

Songs to try

Six challenges, from a single held note to Hot Cross Buns, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Ode to Joy, Happy Birthday. Each is shown note by note on the keyboard; play the marked key to move on. When you finish, hear your take back, and send the link to a friend — it opens the same song and lets them listen before they try. Every tune is in the public domain; your stars stay on your device.

The sound

Recordings of a Hohner melodica by fese on Freesound (pack “Hohner Melodica”, 2006), used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence: nine notes, retuned to equal temperament, looped so a note lasts as long as your breath, and compressed to about 250 KB. They load once the page is ready. Until they have, a synthesised reed plays the same notes.