MusicIsles

For iPhone, iPad and Android

A peaceful musical canvas

Explore music through shapes and structure. Place colorful tiles, choose their notes, and hear piano, violin, cello and clarinet turn your patterns into a living garden on the water.

  • Coming soon to the App StoreiPhone and iPad
  • Coming soon on Google PlayAndroid
  • Works offline
  • No account
  • No ads
A larger garden at night under the moon, with a small sailboat out on the water.
MusicIsles on iPhone: a small garden of planted tiles on turquoise water, with turtles swimming nearby, as the song plays.

Compose

Let a pattern take shape

Place colorful tiles, choose their notes, and connect them into melodies. Begin with a few notes that sound good together, move a tile, listen to the change — and undo it whenever you like.

Composing on iPhone: a few planted tiles on the water, with the plant and note pieces open at the bottom of the screen.

Listen

Four instruments, one canvas

Compose with recorded piano, violin, cello and clarinet sounds. Choose notes and octaves, then hear the parts come together as tiles light up and plants come to life.

Für Elise — Quiet Ensemble, at night. Shown without sound.

Shape

Find your rhythm

Give a note more room with a larger tile, change the tempo, and hear your pattern unfold at a new pace. For more control, turn on all 12 notes and composer tools for rests, chords, loops and other musical changes.

Changing a tile's size: a row of four sizes appears above the selected tile.

Keep

Return to your ideas

Save named gardens on your device and come back to them later. Loop a song while you enjoy the view, or share a postcard of your garden at its current time of day, with an optional link to it.

The Gardens sheet: your saved gardens, each with a small map of its tiles, and the famous gardens below.

iPhone and iPad

Room for a garden to grow

The iOS app runs on iPhone and iPad. Follow the local time or choose morning, day, dusk or night — watch the water, discover animals around your garden, and see fireflies light the night.

Prefer a calmer view? Adjust the visual quality or turn on Reduced motion.

MusicIsles on iPad at night: Für Elise as a spiral garden under the moon, with a sailboat and fish on the water.

Included songs

Step inside a song

Four pieces come with the app, each laid out as its own garden. Open one as a starting point and make your own version.

  • Für Elise as a spiral of planted tiles at night.

    Für Elise

    Beethoven · a spiral arrangement for violin

  • Für Elise — Quiet Ensemble: four paths of tiles on bright turquoise water.

    Für Elise — Quiet Ensemble

    Beethoven · a quiet arrangement for four instruments

  • The Gassenhauer ensemble as curling paths of hexagonal tiles.

    Gassenhauer ensemble

    Beethoven · the Gassenhauer theme for four instruments

  • The Impromptu as four spiral petals of tiles joined at the centre.

    Impromptu, Op. 2a

    George N. Gianopoulos · all 75 measures, as four spiral petals

The Beethoven pieces are arrangements made for MusicIsles, and the Impromptu’s articulation is simplified. Every song plays with the app’s recorded instrument sounds, not a commercial recording.

Calm by design

Nothing between you and the music

  • Works offline

    The app and its instrument sounds live on your device. Composing, playback and saving need no connection; only garden links do.

  • No account

    Open the app and begin. There is nothing to sign in to, and your gardens stay on your device unless you share one.

  • No ads

    No advertising and no analytics in the app — just your garden, the water and the music.

MusicIsles

Begin with a few notes

Coming soon to iPhone, iPad and Android.

  • Coming soon to the App StoreiPhone and iPad
  • Coming soon on Google PlayAndroid