Gesture Synth

Air guitar has never produced a single note, so for most people making music still starts with buying an instrument or facing software full of knobs. With Gesture Synth, your hands in front of the webcam play a synthesizer in the browser. Pinching thumb and index finger together starts a note, and opening them stops it. Moving left and right picks the pitch from a scale, while moving up makes the tone brighter.

A second hand adds a second voice for harmony or a bass note. Of the guided modes, Easy Jam plays four chords and Beat Jam walks you through four bars with a beat and bass. Sing & Play lets the fingers of the left hand pick one of four chords while an optional microphone records your singing. On computers without a camera there is Mouse Mode, and phones and tablets play by touch.

Hand tracking runs on your device, and the privacy section says the live camera feed stays there. Performances are recorded as clips of 15 seconds, or up to 120 seconds in Sing & Play, and can be previewed in the browser. Downloading the video needs a sign-in. A Beat Jam loop can also be saved as a MIDI file for other music software. The site is available in 14 languages.