How to add captions to a music lesson or instrument tutorial on iPhone

Why caption music lessons

Music lessons, such as a guitar chord tutorial, a piano exercise, a drum groove breakdown or a quick practice tip, are often watched with the sound off at first, scrolled past in a feed or replayed to catch one step. Captions let viewers read your explanation and then turn the sound up to hear the playing, and they help viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing follow the teaching.

This guide is for lessons where you explain and then play. For other how-to videos, see the DIY tutorial guide; for process videos with a voiceover, the art process guide. CaptionAddr burns the captions into the picture, so they show wherever you post.

Caption a music lesson on iPhone

1. Explain, then play. Keep the iPhone close, stop playing while you talk and speak each step before you demonstrate it. Captions come from your speech, so words said over loud playing may be missed or come out wrong.
2. Choose the video. Tap Select Video in CaptionAddr and pick the clip with Apple’s Photos picker. Vertical, square and landscape videos all work, and the video keeps its shape.
3. Let the captions generate. Captions start as soon as the video opens; keep the app open; the English speech is transcribed on your iPhone, not on a server. Stretches that are only playing usually have no captions.
4. Fix chords, notes and music terms. Chord names, note names such as sharps and flats, counts, tempo numbers and technique words are the words most likely to come out wrong. Correct them in Edit Captions. You can edit, delete and reorder words, with undo and redo.
5. Keep your hands in view. Choose one of the 20 fonts and a size that reads on a phone, turn on the tinted background over a busy background, and drag the captions where they don’t cover your hands, the strings, the keys or the drums.
6. Export and post. Tap Export Video to save the captioned copy to Photos, then upload it to TikTok, Reels, Shorts or any other app. The watermark is off unless you turn it on.

Tips for music lesson captions

• Say the goal first. Name what viewers will learn in the first seconds, so the first captioned words tell them why to keep watching.
• Spell out chords clearly. Say “C sharp minor” or “B flat” slowly and check each one in Edit Captions, since short note names are easy to mishear.
• Count in out loud. Spoken counts are captioned, so saying “one, two, three, four” before you play gives captioned viewers the timing.
• Delete stray words. Remove any words the app picks up from humming, singing along or background noise in Edit Captions.
• Keep your original. CaptionAddr exports a new copy and leaves the original clip in your library.

Limits

• Speech only. CaptionAddr captions spoken English. It doesn’t caption the music you play, and sung lyrics may be missed or misheard.
• No notation or diagrams. The app doesn’t add chord charts, tabs, sheet music, fingering diagrams or titles, and you can only fix, delete or reorder the transcribed words.
• English only. CaptionAddr transcribes English speech and doesn’t translate.
• Single-word captions. Words appear one at a time, timed automatically, always in uppercase; there are no speaker labels, full-sentence layouts or manual per-word timing.
• No audio changes. The app doesn’t change the volume, separate your voice from the instrument or change the audio; deleting a word removes it from the captions only.
• Length. Free covers videos up to 2 minutes; CaptionAddr Pro covers up to 30 minutes. The App Store shows the current Pro price in your currency.
• Burned-in captions only. There is no SRT, VTT or text export, and the app doesn’t post to social platforms.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides

• How to add captions to a DIY or how-to tutorial on iPhone
• How to add captions to an art or drawing process video on iPhone
• How to add captions to TikTok videos
• How to add captions to a dance tutorial or choreography breakdown on iPhone

All caption guides →