System and method for identifying tones present in a short segment of digitized music stream, and for reporting simultaneously and quantitatively their respective magnitude and phase in near real time. Also captured are pitch deviations from the nominal tones of a predetermined music scale. The resulting spectral data can be scrolled manually from frame to frame to facilitate detail music evaluation and editing. The apparatus can also operate at real time to display notes being played, or to tone-activate audio-visual music enhancement and display with automatic synchronization.