Support » Playing your first song.

Synthesia shows music notes as falling blocks! Usually the left hand is blue and the right hand is green. When a block has a number, use that finger to play it.

Your thumb is 1 and your pinky finger is 5.

When there are blank notes between those with finger hints, you can usually use context clues to figure out which fingers to use. The general rule is that you want to pick hand positions that change infrequently, so the finger used for the same pitch usually stays the same.

In this case, the green, right-hand notes shown require no hand movement at all. The next green hints would be 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 1. They aren't displayed because they can be inferred using the "move your hand as little as possible" rule.

A finger hint is generally the marker that says it's time to move your hand or change the pattern that you were following before.

Play notes just as the block touches the top of the on-screen keyboard. If you're playing in Melody Practice mode, colored dots will appear on the keys you should play.

Clicking or tapping the timeline (located near the top of the screen) lets you jump around in the song. This is handy if want to practice a particular portion of a song without playing the entire song through every time.

You can find the Pause button on the control bar, just to the left of the BPM indicator. Select it to toggle between pausing and resuming the song.

Control the song speed with the + and - buttons. Always play the song slowly enough that you're comfortable with how quickly notes arrive at the keyboard. It's always best to develop the muscle memory for playing correctly, instead of trying to play too fast and making mistakes!

The Help button at the top left shows what all the other controls do. It also shows the shortcuts to activate each control more quickly. Feel free to explore the rest of the buttons on the toolbar. Each mode includes more instructions to follow once activated.

The magnifying glass icon at the top-right adjusts your keyboard zoom.

Choose "Song Only" to zoom in to only the keys used by the song.

The "My Keyboard" setting allows you to see only the notes that your keyboard can reach. (This option will appear in the list when you have a digital piano connected.)

The - and + buttons at the bottom of the menu zoom in and out incrementally for an individualized zoom. On a touchscreen it's even easier: pinch horizontally to quickly and precisely control the zoom.

Use the Pg Up and Pg Down keys on your typing keyboard (or pinch vertically on your touchscreen) to adjust how much of the song is visible at a time.

Showing more of the song might be helpful to get a better idea what's coming up, but be careful not to make the notes too small.