Hand separation
Piano transcription with the hands on separate tracks
A transcription is a single stream of notes. To learn the piece, or to print it on two staves, you need to know which hand plays what. Tick one box and the MIDI comes back split.
One free transcription a week of the first 2 minutes of a recording, no card required. See plans
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Free transcriptions cover the first 2 minutes of a recording; anything after that is left out. Paid plans go up to 15 minutes.
Transcribing needs an account — we’ll hold onto your file while you sign in.
Not a split at middle C
The simple way to separate hands is to draw a line across the keyboard and send everything below it to the left hand. It fails whenever a hand crosses the line, which in real music is constantly.
This works differently. It follows each hand through the whole piece and chooses the assignment that needs the least awkward movement overall: how far each hand has to travel, how wide it has to stretch, and whether the hands would have to cross.
Two styles, because the music differs
Classical writing mostly keeps each hand in a compact position and moves it gradually. Jazz, stride and ragtime ask the left hand to leap between a bass note and a chord and to roll 10ths.
One set of rules cannot serve both, so you choose: Jazz (the default) or Classical. On a test set of 231 classical scores, the Classical setting puts about 92 notes in 100 in the correct hand.
Where it goes wrong
When both hands play in the same octave, sound alone often cannot tell you which hand took a note, and two good pianists might finger it differently. Expect mistakes there.
Each hand is always one consistent track, so fixing an error means moving a note from one track to the other in any MIDI editor.
Questions
Can I separate the hands of a MIDI file I already have?
Not at the moment. Hand separation runs as part of transcribing an audio recording.
Which style should I pick?
Jazz for jazz, stride, ragtime, blues and most popular styles where the left hand jumps around. Classical for written classical repertoire.
Does separating hands cost extra?
No. It is an option on every transcription, including the free one each week.