How to Use MidiStickers for Online Music Teaching: 10 Ideas for Your Piano and Music Theory Lessons

MidiStickers was designed to support your teaching from the ground up. One of its most powerful features is Overlay mode, which lets any widget float directly on your desktop as an independent window. Each widget can be freely moved, resized, or minimized, so you stay in control without switching between applications.

This makes it especially useful for online lessons and classroom use. Instead of setting up OBS or a virtual camera, you simply share your entire screen on Zoom, Google Meet, or any video platform — and your widgets are already there, ready to go.

Here are ten ideas for using MidiStickers in your lessons, from beginner fundamentals all the way to college-level harmony.

1. Teaching Music Notation

The Staff widgets display your MIDI input as real-time notation — with correct accidentals, clef choice, and key signature. For beginners, enable the Show Note Names setting to display note names directly on the staff, then gradually turn it off as their reading develops. Color schemes for note names are also available for an extra visual layer.

You can pair the staff with the Piano or Fretboard widget for a classic notation-plus-keyboard (or guitar) layout, or swap in the Xylophone and Recorder visualizations for classroom settings. If your students work with DAWs, the Piano Roll widget offers a familiar visual bridge between notation and production, and supports the same color schemes for note names.

2. Teaching Triads and Seventh Chords

Use the Chord Symbols widget to display chord names in real time as you play, so students immediately see the connection between what they hear and how it’s labeled. The Chord Dictionary lets you browse any chord across all 12 keys and display it alongside the staff — useful for explaining inversions, chord tones, and voice leading.

Once students are comfortable with a chord, the 12 Keys Chord Trainer lets them practice it across all keys with auto-generated backing tracks, building fluency and transposition skills at their own pace.

3. Teaching Harmonic Analysis

The Roman Numeral widget analyzes chords in real time and displays their function within the key — I, ii, V7, and so on. This makes it straightforward to demonstrate harmonic progressions, show how the same chord functions differently in different keys, or walk through a piece of repertoire chord by chord. The settings let you toggle inversion numerals on or off and adjust the notation style (e.g. IIm instead of ii) to match your textbook conventions.

The Function Symbols widget (Funktionstheorie) is available alongside Roman Numerals for teachers who follow that tradition — a rare feature in any software, and one that makes MidiStickers particularly valuable in European, Russian, Chinese, and Brazilian university contexts.

For a richer analytical view, combine the Roman Numeral widget with the Chord Progression tracker, which logs the chords you play in sequence — or add the Figured Bass widget to compare different systems of harmonic analysis side by side.

4. Teaching Figured Bass and Partimento

The Figured Bass widget displays intervals above the bass in real time, following the conventions of early music theory and partimento practice. As you play, students can see the figures update live — making it far easier to connect the notation tradition to actual sound.

This is particularly effective for teaching voice leading rules, resolving dissonances, and working through partimento exercises. Pair it with the Harpsichord visualization for a layer of historical context that students tend to find engaging.

The Historical Temperaments feature adds another dimension for teachers covering tuning and early music performance practice: switch between temperaments mid-lesson and let students hear the difference in real time.

5. Teaching Advanced Chord Voicings

The Voicing Explorer lets you browse and display advanced jazz and classical voicings across all 12 keys. For each voicing, students can see the notes on the staff, the chord symbol, and the keyboard layout simultaneously — making the relationship between notation, harmony, and the instrument concrete.

Use the 12 Keys Chord Trainer to assign a voicing and have students practice it across all keys with auto-generated backing tracks. Progress is tracked automatically, so you can revisit weaker keys in the next lesson.

6. Teaching Drop 2 and Block Chord Concepts

The Voicing Explorer includes drop 2 and block chord voicings alongside standard close-position chords, making it easy to demonstrate the difference between them side by side. Display a close-position chord, then show its drop 2 equivalent — students can see exactly which voice moves and why.

The real-time staff and chord symbol display means that as you demonstrate voicings at the piano, everything updates on screen instantly. No need to prepare anything in advance.

7. Teaching Improvisation

The Chord-Scale Explorer maps chords to their compatible scales and modes, giving students a visual reference for improvisation choices. The Modes Explorer is particularly useful for introducing modal jazz concepts with clear visual support.

Combined with the Auto-Accompaniment, which generates bass and drum backing tracks on the fly, you can create a live practice environment during the lesson itself. Set up a ii-V-I or blues progression, display the corresponding chord symbols and suggested scales, and have the student improvise while you guide them in real time.

8. Teaching Piano Scale Fingerings

Use the Scale Trainer widget with fingering display to show recommended fingerings for any scale directly on the on-screen keyboard. Students can see the fingering pattern as you demonstrate, and you can annotate directly on screen using the built-in drawing tools to highlight thumb crossings or problem spots.

9. Teaching Intervals

Combine the Staff widget with the interval visualization tools to make interval identification visual and immediate — students can see the distance between notes on both the staff and the keyboard at the same time. Once the concept is clear, move into the Guided Practice mode for structured interval drills with built-in progress tracking, so you can monitor improvement across lessons.

10. Setting Up Your Teaching Layout in Seconds

One underrated feature for teachers is the ability to save your widget arrangement as a preset. Once you’ve set up your preferred combination — say, Staff + Piano + Fretboard + Roman Numerals — you can save that layout and recall it instantly at the start of every lesson.

MidiStickers includes stock layouts for common teaching scenarios, so you don’t need to start from scratch. For teachers managing multiple students at different levels, the Studio version adds separate profiles and progress tracking per student.

Want to try these ideas for yourself? Download the free demo and explore the widgets at your own pace — no MIDI controller required to get started.