Cadence user guide

Make every rehearsal count.

Find a song, follow the MIDI notes, and practise a voice part or a tricky passage at your own pace. This guide walks you through the controls step by step.

Start with the library

Find your music

Choose a song from your collection

The song list is on the left. Select any title to open its rehearsal workspace. Use the search box to narrow the list by song title, composer, or arranger.

Click the search box and type a title, composer, or arranger.
Choose a song in the list. Its score and MIDI controls appear on the right.
On a small screen, tap Library to open or close the song list.

Follow along

Switch between piano roll and sheet music

Piano roll shows the MIDI notes as colored steps on a keyboard. The vertical line moves with playback; click or tap the roll to jump to a point in the song. Use the Zoom slider or − / + buttons below the roll to make note bars wider or fit the full song again. You can also pinch on a trackpad; keyboard shortcuts + / − zoom in and out, and 0 returns to Fit.

Select Sheet music to view the song’s PDF as a static reference. Playback does not follow the PDF; use the piano roll to see the MIDI playback position. If the embedded viewer takes a while, use Open PDF to open the file directly in Google Drive.

Listen and practise

Control the MIDI playback

Play / pause: start or pause the selected MIDI.
Timeline: drag the slider to seek; use the restart button to return to the beginning.
MIDI part: use the colored buttons directly below the piano roll. Choose All Voices for the ensemble, or select an individual voice when that file is available.
Tempo: slow the song down or bring it back up without changing pitch.
Volume and instrument: adjust the sound to suit your practice.

A MIDI may take longer to load the first time. Cadence keeps parsed MIDI data in the browser, which can make a later visit to the same song faster.

Practise a passage

Loop just the section you need

Move the playhead to the passage’s beginning and press A · Set start.
Move to the passage’s end and press B · Set end. The selected passage is highlighted in the piano roll.
Turn on Repeat. Cadence will jump back to A when playback reaches B.
Press Clear loop to remove the selection. With no A/B selection, Repeat loops the whole song.

Set A before B, and make sure B is later in the song than A.

Read the colors

See which voice is singing

Cadence uses a consistent palette: Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass.

When the individual voice MIDIs are available, Cadence compares their notes with the ensemble MIDI to identify the part. Reference notes load in the background, so colors may refine shortly after the piano roll appears. If no match is found, Cadence estimates the color from the ensemble notes.

To rehearse one part by itself, choose its matching colored button below the piano roll. Only available MIDI parts are shown.

Tip: When voices share the same pitch at the same time, their colors split the note bar so you can see both parts.

When something goes wrong

Quick troubleshooting

The PDF is slow or won’t open

PDFs are delivered from Google Drive. Give the first load a moment; if it remains blank, choose Open PDF to view it in Google Drive.

The MIDI part is missing

Only MIDI parts with an indexed file appear as colored buttons below the piano roll. Choose All Voices to play the ensemble, or select another available part.

The colors look estimated

Wait for the voice references to load. Colors are estimated when a separate voice MIDI is missing or its notes do not align closely enough with the ensemble.

Still need help?

Return to the library or visit the support page.