Setup • Usage • Learn

Pyanist is a tool that allows chorded typing using a regular N-key rollover keyboard. It allows you to use chorded typing in addition to normal typing, which means that you can get started by chording a few frequent words instead of having to learn a whole system from scratch.

To install Pyanist, you need to have pip, or another Python package manager installed on your computer. If you have pip installed simply run:

Linux

sudo pip install pyanist

OS X/Windows

pip install pyanist

After that you should be ready to run Pyanist.

Note: Pyanist has only been tested on Linux, albeit it should run also on OS X and Windows.

After you've installed Pyanist, you can run in using the command:

Linux

sudo pyanist

OS X/Windows

pyanist

While Pyanist is running, you can type words using chords. Chording means, that you press multiple letters at the same time. For example, you can press the letters iou at the same time in order to type the word you with a single keystroke.

Whenever you type a chord and a matching word is found, Pyanist will write that word for you. If no matching word is found, your chord will have no effect.

The chords used to type some of the most common English words:

To see the list of all 5000 different chords you can use with Pyanist, see this CSV file.

There is a course designed to learn the most useful chords in Pyanist. This course teaches the top 100 words, and is split into 10 lessons.

You will probably need to practice each lesson multiple times on different days before the chords are committed to your muscle memory.

In order to practice the lessons, you can simply open the text files and manually copy them by typing and chording them into a text editor. Alternatively, you can use Monkeytype, which will also measure your performance. Monkeytype allows you to practice a custom file, which is the feature you will need to use in order to practice these lessons.

The lessons available:

• Lesson 1 - the and have with for you this they from say
• Lesson 2 - their his but not what would she about people there
• Lesson 3 - think know which make will could year because can time
• Lesson 4 - who get her other when them just some take all
• Lesson 5 - into your these come through than first one something like
• Lesson 6 - then more want out him thing see look government those
• Lesson 7 - should also between school now student American woman another more
• Lesson 8 - child there here well its how find really our very
• Lesson 9 - country after become tell many give question two problem only
• Lesson 10 - world still back different family even against company good way

./word-freq-top5000.csv - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/filiph/english_words/master/data/word-freq-top5000.csv (MIT)