In development for Android
The melody, drawn as you recite.
Tilawify draws a reciter's pitch on screen, then draws yours beside it, live, while you recite.
The reciter Your voice Real output from the melody engine, for the opening verse of Al-Fatiha.
What you are looking at
Every mark on that screen has exactly one job.
- The thin horizontal lines
- This reciter's own scale. Tilawify works out the notes they actually use and rules the page with those, not with a generic grid.
- The dark line
- The reciter's melody. It stops at the end of every word and starts again at the next, because a word is a unit and the voice does not slur between them.
- The gold diamond
- Where a held note begins. It is the mark to aim at.
- The purple line
- You. It is the only thing on the screen that carries feedback, so there is never any doubt about which line is yours.
- The upright rule
- Now. It stays where it is and the recitation moves past it, so your eye never has to chase anything across the screen.
How a session goes
Three things happen, in this order, and then they keep happening.
Listen
The recitation plays, and its melody is already drawn ahead of the playhead. You can see what is coming before you open your mouth.
Recite
Your phone listens through the microphone and works out the pitch of your voice on the device itself, many times a second.
See
Your line appears next to the reciter's. Above the note means high, below means low. The colour agrees with the position and never has to carry the message on its own.
Same pitch, same height. Always.
It would be easier to stretch every phrase to fill the width of the screen. It would also be useless, because then every phrase would look the same.
A note drawn here is the same note drawn there, on every screen, in every surah, for every reciter. That one rule is why what your eye learns in the first verse still means something in the last, and it is the constraint the whole design is built around.
Your voice never leaves your phone.
The microphone is on only while you are practising, and what it hears is worked out on the device.
- Nothing is recorded. Your voice exists as a live signal in memory for the length of the session, and then it is gone.
- Nothing is uploaded. Audio is never sent anywhere. If you make an account, what syncs is which surahs you have practised, and nothing else.
- An account is optional. You can practise without one, and if you make one you can delete it from inside the app at any time.
What you will not find
Practising recitation is not a game, and the app does not treat it like one.
No scores
No streaks
No confetti
No leaderboards
No nagging notifications
No sound effects
What the first release will include
This is the plan, written down while it is still a plan. Anything not yet settled is marked as not settled.
Al-Fatiha first, then Juz Amma
The melody engine has been run and checked across all 37 surahs of Juz Amma. Which of them appear in the first release depends on the recitations we are cleared to publish.
Once a surah is on your phone, practising it needs no connection at all.
Free
The first version costs nothing. No advertising, and nothing sold on inside it.
The reciters
Not announced, deliberately. No reciter will be named here until there is written permission covering public release.
Placeholder: reciter names and their permission or licence status go here once the letters have been answered.
Your key, not the reciter's
Shift the whole melody up or down in semitones so it sits where your voice actually is. The shape of the phrase does not change; only its height does.
Know when it is ready
One email when there is a build worth trying. Nothing else, and you can leave the list whenever you like.
Questions
When will it be available?
There is no date, and giving you a made-up one would be the wrong way to start. It is being built by one person and it is ready when the practice screen is genuinely good on a real phone, not before. The waitlist hears first.
What will it cost?
The first version is free. There is no advertising in it.
Is my voice recorded or uploaded?
No. The pitch of your voice is worked out on your own device while you recite, and the audio itself is never written to a file and never sent anywhere. The privacy policy sets out exactly what is and is not collected.
Which reciters will be included?
Not announced yet, and that is deliberate. Permission to publish a recitation is being sought properly and in writing, and no reciter will be named on this site until that is settled. If you are a reciter, or you represent one, please get in touch.
Will there be an iPhone version?
Android comes first. There is nothing to announce about iPhone yet.
Does it work without an internet connection?
Yes, once a surah is on your phone. Practising is entirely local: the audio, the melody and the pitch detection all live on the device.
Will this teach me tajweed?
No, and it does not try to. Tilawify is about pitch and melody only. It does not check your pronunciation, it does not correct your tajweed, and it is not a substitute for learning from a teacher.