Swung vs Ableton Learning Music
Ableton’s Learning Music is a free website that teaches the basics of music making in your browser, with no sign-up, and can send what you make to Ableton Live. Swung is a course built on named patterns: Unit 1 is free with a Google sign-in, and the full course is paid. Pick Learning Music for a free overview, especially if you plan to use Live; pick Swung for a chapter-by-chapter path from your first beat to finished projects, with ear training on the way.
Facts as of October 2026
Where both start: a grid
Both sites begin with a grid like this one: sixteen boxes per bar, tap a box to add a hit. Switch between a backbeat and four-on-the-floor, the two beats under most pop, rock and dance music.
Each beat has its own page: Backbeat and Four on the floor.
Try Swung’s Unit 1, free
14 short parts on the beat, in your browser, free with a Google sign-in. Then decide.
Pick up where you left off
Carry on with Unit 1; your next lesson is ready.
Side by side
| Swung | Learning Music | |
|---|---|---|
| Made by | Swung (swung.app) | Ableton, the company behind the DAW Ableton Live |
| Price | Unit 1 is free. The full course is $59 a year after a 3-day free trial, or $12.99 a month; Units 2 to 9 arrive chapter by chapter. | Free |
| Sign-up | A Google sign-in for the Unit 1 lessons. Pattern pages, genre loops and the beat maker need no account. | None |
| Install | None. Runs in the browser, on a laptop or a phone. | None. Runs in the browser. |
| Equipment | None | None; the site says no prior experience or equipment is required |
| Topics | 9 chapters: beat, groove, low end, harmony, melody, voice, form and energy, sound, styles. 44 lessons and 85 pattern cards. | Beats, notes and scales, chords, basslines, melodies and song structure, plus advanced topics such as modes, inversions, voicings and seventh chords |
| Format | Lessons with steps to pass: build the pattern, pick it out by ear, and a project at the end of each chapter | Short interactive lessons with grids to play, and a free-play playground |
| Music used | Original loops only, all over the same four chords | Many lessons are built around parts of well-known songs |
| Languages | English | 19 languages |
| Where it leads | Swung’s beat maker, and pattern names you can use in any DAW or AI music tool | An “Export to Live” button that takes your work into Ableton Live |
Learning Music facts are from its own pages and Ableton’s announcement; see the sources below.
What each does well
Learning Music costs nothing and asks for nothing: no account, no install, no instrument. It runs from beats to song structure, and its advanced topics reach into modes, unusual scales such as pelog and 19-tone, inversions and chord voicings. Many lessons start from a part of a song you may know, which makes each idea easy to place. It is available in 19 languages, and if you use Ableton Live you can carry your work straight into it.
Swung is organised around named patterns: four-on-the-floor, off-beat bass, half-time snare. Each one gets a lesson where you build it, then pick it out of three by ear, and you keep it as a card to use in a project at the end of the chapter. There are 11 genre loops to take apart track by track, a pattern dictionary and a beat maker with real drum machines. Progress is saved to your account, so it follows you between devices.
Where Swung is narrower: only Unit 1 is free, it is in English only, and every lesson loop runs over the same four chords, A minor, F, C and G. It doesn’t export to a DAW; a beat you make is shared as a link.
Who should pick which
Pick Learning Music if
- you want to try making music for free, with no account at all;
- you use Ableton Live, or plan to, and want to carry ideas into it;
- you want theory beyond the basics: modes, other scales, inversions and voicings;
- you’d rather learn in a language other than English;
- you like learning through parts of songs you already know.
Pick Swung if
- you want each chapter to end with a project you build;
- you want to recognise patterns by ear and know them by name;
- you want to take apart whole genre loops: house, lo-fi hip hop, trap, reggaeton and drum & bass;
- you want a beat maker with real drum machines to use what you learn;
- you want your progress saved across devices.
Or use both. Learning Music’s beats chapter and Swung’s Unit 1 cover similar ground in different ways, and both cost nothing to try.
Sources
Facts about other products were checked on their own websites in October 2026. Prices and features change; check the product’s site before you decide.
- Learning Music, home page · chapters, lessons, languages, no equipment needed
- Learning Music, “Make beats” lesson · the grid and the Export to Live button
- Ableton blog: Learn Music for Free in Your Browser · free, nothing to install, export as a Live Set (13 September 2017)