Music Game

Music Game is a free ear-training game you play in your browser, with five modes in one place: echo melodies on a piano, name intervals, tap rhythms against the clock, build your own 4-bar songs and learn famous public-domain tunes by ear. There’s no download or sign-up. Every note is tuned to concert pitch (A4 = 440 Hz) in equal temperament, so what you train here carries over to a real instrument.

How to play

Pick a mode from the buttons at the top. Play the piano with the mouse, by touch, or with the letter keys A to L (white keys), W E T Y U O (sharps) and Z/X to switch octave. Your best result in each mode is saved in your browser.

• Melody Echo: listen to a short melody, then play it back on the two-octave keyboard (C4 to B5). It starts at three notes and every round adds one more, keeping the earlier notes the same, so you are always rebuilding a longer tune. A wrong note costs one of your three lives and the melody plays again. Easy uses one octave, Normal all 14 white keys, and Hard adds the sharps.
• Intervals: hear two notes and pick the distance between them, from unison up to an octave. Tier 1 asks four rising intervals (unison, major 3rd, perfect 5th, octave). Tier 2 has eight intervals that can rise or fall. Tier 3 uses all 13, including notes played together. Each round is ten questions, and each answer shows the real notes and semitones.
• Rhythm Echo: after four count-in clicks, tap each dot on the timeline as the blue line reaches it, using the TAP pad or the Space bar. A tap within 45 milliseconds of the beat is Perfect, within 100 milliseconds is Good, and anything later counts as a miss. Extra taps lower your score. Reach 70% accuracy to unlock the next of eight levels, which move from steady quarter notes to syncopation and sixteenths.
• Song Builder: switch on cells in the Melody, Bass and Drums grids to make a 16-step loop (4 bars of 4 beats). All notes come from one pentatonic scale in the key you choose, so any combination sounds good together. Change the key, switch between major and minor pentatonic, set the tempo from 60 to 180 BPM, save songs by name, load them later, and export your loop as a WAV audio file.
• Learn a Tune: hear a phrase of a well-known tune, then play it back note by note. Turn on “Show next note” to light up the right key, or leave it off and the hint only appears after two wrong notes. Finish with two mistakes or fewer for three stars.

The tunes

Learn a Tune only uses melodies in the public domain: “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” (the traditional French melody “Ah! vous dirai-je, maman”, first printed in 1761), “Mary Had a Little Lamb” (an American nursery song from the 1830s), “Frere Jacques” (a traditional French round from the 18th century), “Ode to Joy” (from Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, 1824) and the chorus of “Jingle Bells” (James Lord Pierpont, published 1857).

Tips

• Sing it back first. In Melody Echo, hum the melody in your head before you touch a key. Notice whether each note goes up or down, and by a small step or a big jump.
• Link intervals to songs you know. A perfect 5th rising is the jump from the second to the third note of “Twinkle Twinkle”, and a major 3rd rising is the first two notes of “When the Saints Go Marching In”. Octaves sound like the same note, just higher.
• Turn the guide sound off. Once a rhythm level feels easy, untick “Hear rhythm” and play it from the dots alone, with only the metronome to keep time.
• Leave space in your loop. A good Song Builder loop often has more empty cells than full ones. Start with drums, add a simple bass on beat 1 of each bar, then write the melody on top.

FAQ

Is Music Game free?

Yes. It is free to play with no account and nothing to install.

Can I save and download my songs?

Yes. Type a name and press Save to keep up to 12 songs in your browser, then pick one from the list and press Load. Export WAV renders two passes of your loop to a WAV audio file you can play anywhere or drop into another music app.

Does it work on phones and Chromebooks?

Yes. On a touchscreen, tap the keys, the rhythm pad and the song grid; the game area won’t scroll the page while you play. Space, P and Esc work on a laptop or Chromebook. Wireless headphones add a small delay, so use speakers or wired headphones for the most accurate rhythm grading.

Want a bigger keyboard to play freely? Try our Virtual Piano. For a faster timing challenge, play Rhythm Tap.