Google’s online tools are great for collaboration, and now, the company is putting that expertise to use for something a bit more fun. “Shared Piano” is a new experiment from Google that gives you the ability to make music with your friends from a distance.
The idea behind Google’s Shared Piano experiment is to allow people to collaborate on music, or even teach lessons, from their own homes. Given the current state of the world, that’s something many people could find genuinely useful. To get things going, one user creates a session and then sends a unique link to up to 10 friends who can then join in on the fun. No logins, no installations. Google identifies the different users with animal emoji, too, which is cute.
In a brief test, I found that this experiment works basically anywhere. It launched on Google Chrome, of course, but also worked flawlessly on my iPad with Safari (default apps, please Apple). The new Chromium-based Edge works too. It even works on an Android phone, albeit with a smaller keyboard layout.
On top of working with multiple browsers, Shared Piano also accepts multiple forms of input. It supports a computer keyboard, a touchscreen, and even a MIDI keyboard!