iPhone & iPad
A ball falls.
Your song plays.
Drop in a song and MusicBall builds a whole machine to perform it — plates, curving rails, spiralling drops. Then a ball falls through the lot, and every note you hear is the ball hitting something.
Every note has its own colour, and it keeps it. A few minutes in and you're spotting a melody's repeats before you hear them come round again.
Three taps
Every song gets its own machine.
A gentle piece grows tall spirals the ball winds slowly down. A fast one packs tight columns it ping-pongs between. Switch back and forth — you'll never see the same machine twice.
Pick a song
Seven classics are already here. Or bring in a favourite of your own — it stays on your phone.
Give it a few seconds
It builds a machine made for this one song. Hundreds of pieces, all of them placed for the notes you're about to hear.
Then just watch
Every note is the ball hitting something, right on the beat. That's the whole thing — and it's oddly hard to stop.
What you're seeing
You'll start to see the music.
Nothing on screen is decoration. A few minutes in, you're not just watching the machine — you're reading it.
- A dark plate
- A note that hasn't been played yet. The whole song is laid out ahead of you.
- A plate lighting up
- That note just sounded. Its colour is the note itself — C is always the same coral pink, so the repeats in a melody light up in the same colours every time.
- A plate glowing red
- This one has to give the ball a shove. Watch it — the ball comes off faster than it went in.
- A curving tube
- A rest in the music. The ball rolls through, turns around, and gets thrown back out in time for the next note.
- A spiral around a column
- A long pause — usually an interlude. The ball winds slowly down and lands exactly when the music starts again. Everyone's favourite part.
- A long straight slide
- The melody is changing hands. The ball rides across to a whole different rig.
- A plate bouncing back
- You can feel the impact. The ball is solid; the boards are what give.
- Tight vertical columns
- A fast run. The ball drops through a narrow channel, hitting both sides on the way down.
Three ways to hear it
Same song, three different shows.
One part
The ball takes the melody you picked and plays it the whole way through.
Director
The melody changes hands as the piece goes on. Every time it does, the ball rides a long slide across to a completely different machine.
Two balls
Two balls, two melodies, two machines side by side — playing together.
Bring your own song
Import a favourite from Files or iCloud Drive and watch it get built. Your file never leaves your phone.
Every hit lands on the beat
The ball never fakes it. It arrives exactly when the note does — what you're watching and what you're hearing are the same thing.
Fly the camera
Ride along with the ball, or take over — spin around it, pan across the machine, pinch to take the whole thing in at once.
Nothing to sign up for
No account, no ads, no tracking, nothing collected. It works exactly the same in Airplane Mode.
Included
Seven classics to start with.
Picked as much for what they build as for how they sound. Gymnopédie fills the screen with slow spirals; The Entertainer packs it wall to wall. Same app, two completely different things to look at.
| Piece | Composer |
|---|---|
| Canon in D densest | Pachelbel |
| The Entertainer | Joplin |
| Turkish March | Mozart |
| In the Hall of the Mountain King | Grieg |
| Für Elise | Beethoven |
| Prelude in C | Bach |
| Gymnopédie No. 1 sparsest | Satie |
Questions
FAQ
Does the ball really hit every note on time?
Every single one. It never fakes an impact and never drifts — if you hear a note, the ball just hit something. That's what makes it worth watching rather than just pretty to look at.
Why is only one melody playing?
One ball can only be in one place at a time. The rest of the music is still there underneath as accompaniment — and if you want more of it up front, hand the melody to a different part, let it change hands as the piece goes on, or run two balls at once.
Why the wait before it starts?
It's building a machine specifically for the song you picked — every piece placed for the notes you're about to hear. A few seconds, and then it never has to think again. Nothing starts playing until the whole thing is standing.
Can I use my own music?
Yes — bring in any MIDI file from Files or iCloud Drive and it gets built the same way. The file is copied into the app and never leaves your phone.
Does it collect anything about me?
Nothing at all. No account, no ads, no tracking, no analytics — and no network connection of any kind. It behaves identically in Airplane Mode. See the privacy policy.