Cat Piano

Every key is a cat.

Cat Piano is a piano that meows. Three cats were recorded, and the app turns each of them into a whole keyboard: tap a key and that cat sings that note, in tune. Play chords with ten fingers, slide the side of your hand across the keys, let a meow ring out while the next one starts. Or sit back and let the cat play Für Elise for you. It is the piano from April 2009, one of the first on the App Store, rebuilt for the phones and iPads of today.

iPad, iPhone

No account, no ads. What you record stays on your device.

Cat Piano on an iPhone held sideways: twenty-four keys with a chord pressed, the tabby kitten in the bar above

The kitten of the 2009 launch screen above twelve keys, a C major chord pressed

The flip side: Select sound set with the tabby kitten, the white cat and the calico, and Record a sound below

Twenty-four keys with a chord pressed an octave up

A tune playing itself: the stop button in the bar and one key lit

Thirty-six keys on the phone, a chord pressed in the middle

Für Elise, meowed

The best thing in Cat Piano is a cat playing Beethoven. Choose a tune and the cat you picked plays it for you, every note a meow and every meow in tune, the keys lighting up as it goes: Ode to Joy by a tabby kitten, Canon in D by a calico, Für Elise by the white cat. Six tunes: Spring from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Canon in D, Ode to Joy, Für Elise, Twinkle Twinkle and Happy Birthday. Slow a tune to half speed and follow it with your own fingers, or run it at double speed and let the cat race.

The tunes play in your own sound too. Record a friend saying their name, then play them Happy Birthday in it.

A tune playing on Cat Piano, an iPhone held sideways, one key lit and the stop button in the bar

Three cats, from 2009

A tabby kitten, a white cat and a calico. They are the recordings the app shipped with in 2009, and they are the whole instrument: choose a cat on the flip side and you hear its own voice, exactly as recorded; then every key plays that voice at the pitch of the key. In 2009 each meow had been re-pitched by hand into twelve files, one per key. Now one meow is pitched live to whatever key you touch, so the keyboard can be as wide as you like and every note is still in tune.

Real keys

The keys are drawn in the proportions of the original: ivory with a front edge, bevelled black keys, keys that travel when you press them and shade the key beside them. Every finger is tracked on its own. Play chords, run a glissando across the keys, hold one cat and add another; a meow rings to its end while the next one starts, ten at a time. Twelve keys, as in 2009, or twenty-four or thirty-six from middle C. A light tap under your finger, if you want it. Held sideways, the keys fill the screen; upright, the kitten sits above them.

Record your own cat

Your own cat, your dog, a friend, a door, a sneeze: record up to four seconds, or choose an audio file. The app finds the pitch of the sound and the keys play it in tune, the same way they play the cats. A sound with no clear pitch, a clap or a knock, is treated as sung in the middle of the keys. The recording stays on your device, and the microphone is used only while you record.

The flip side of Cat Piano on an iPhone held sideways: Select sound set with three cats, and Record a sound

On the iPad

Wider keys, two octaves by default, and the same cats. The kitten sits above the keys in either orientation.

Cat Piano on an iPad: the kitten above twenty-four keys with a chord pressed

Privacy

No data is collected. No account, no ads, no analytics. The microphone is asked for when you tap Record and used only while you record; what you record is kept on the device and never leaves it. Nothing in the app talks to a server.

Since 2009

Cat Piano shipped in April 2009, in the App Store’s first year, with a kitten asleep on the launch screen and one recorded meow behind each key. It was downloaded millions of times, and the iPad edition reached second place in Japan. Its last update was in 2009, and when the App Store dropped 32-bit apps it went dark. This is the same piano, rebuilt: the same three cats, the same kitten on the first screen, on an engine that pitches the recordings live.

Questions

Are the cats real? Yes. Three cats were recorded in 2009, and those recordings are the sounds you hear. Nothing is synthesized.

Is it in tune? Yes. Each cat’s pitch is measured and every key shifts it by the exact number of semitones, so a tune played on Cat Piano is the tune.

Which tunes does it play? Spring from the Four Seasons, Canon in D, Ode to Joy, Für Elise, Twinkle Twinkle and Happy Birthday, in whichever cat you chose or in your own recording, at half to double speed.

Can I play chords? Yes. Every finger is tracked on its own, and up to ten cats sing at once.

Does it play with the silent switch on? Yes. Cat Piano is an instrument, so it plays like one, silent switch or not. Turn the volume down instead.

Can I use my own sound? Yes. Record up to four seconds, or choose an audio file. The keys play it in tune.

Does it record me? Only when you tap Record, and only for those seconds. The recording stays on your device.

Is there a subscription? No.

Which devices? iPhone and iPad with iOS 18.4 or later.

The story of bringing it back after seventeen years: Cat Piano is back.