music21 vs MyMusicTheory

music21 is a free Python toolkit for computer-aided musicology, used to study music datasets, teach music theory, edit notation, analyze music, generate examples, and compose. It includes a corpus of thousands of encoded works, plus tools for searching that corpus, plotting pitch, and performing advanced analysis such as nPVI. The toolkit works with MIDI and MusicXML and can be extended to handle other formats. Its documentation recommends MuseScore for viewing and editing notation, and describes MusicXML readers including Finale, Sibelius, and Dorico. Optional integrations include LilyPond, Matplotlib, SciPy, PyAudio, and Pygame; music21 can also be used in web-based Jupyter Notebook. It runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows, with web use through Jupyter. The toolkit is BSD-licensed and costs nothing. Some corpus works have separate license restrictions. Users need some familiarity with Python, and music21 works primarily with symbolic music data rather than sound waves; it cannot read notation directly from images or PDFs.

MyMusicTheory offers interactive exercises for learning music theory and improving sight reading. Practice topics include notes, scales, intervals, chords, rhythm, and key signatures. Users can create custom exercises by choosing chords, scales, and intervals to work on, then review progress by day, week, or month with reports highlighting weaker areas. More advanced material includes seventh and extended chords, scale modes, compound intervals, and multiple clefs. The free plan includes more than 100 exercises, and the service is available on Android, iOS, and macOS. The iOS app is a free download with in-app purchases, including a Premium Upgrade for $8.99; the Android listing says it contains ads and in-app purchases. The app may help with preparation for ABRSM Levels 1–5, but does not cover every syllabus topic. Apple lists location, identifiers, and usage data as potentially used for tracking across other companies’ apps and websites.