Music theory game: intervals, scales and chords on the keyboard
A music game for secondary-school theory, with a two-octave keyboard that plays. You play the note a major third or a perfect fifth above another, mark the notes of a major or minor scale between the tonic and its octave, build major, minor, diminished and augmented chords and classify written intervals. When it is marked, the right answer plays, so your ear learns along with your eyes.
Music · Secondary
An interval has a number (C to E is a third, because both notes are counted) and a quality (major with four semitones, minor with three). The keyboard shows the semitones: the black keys in between.
A major scale always follows tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone. Building it from D brings in the two sharps by itself, and the explanation spells them correctly: F♯, not G♭, because each letter appears once.
Major and minor only change the third, and diminished lowers the fifth as well. Hearing the four types one after another is what makes them recognisable in a song.
"The round says “mark the D major chord”, with D already in orange. The student marks F and A, checks and gets it wrong: the keyboard shows F♯ in green. The explanation says a major third has four semitones, and on hearing it they notice D – F – A sounded sad: that was the minor chord."
Prefer to learn without screens? Try this analogue version:
Draw two octaves of a piano on a strip of paper, with the black keys.
Colour the semitones between E–F and B–C, which have no black key in between.
Build the C, G, D and F major scales in pencil with tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone.
On each note of the C major scale, write the three-note chord it makes (C – E – G, D – F – A…) and whether it is major or minor.
If you like Scales and Chords, these activities work similar skills:
Ten questions with the same mechanics, untimed and marked, on three levels.
Read the notes on the staff and play them on the piano.
Note values, rests and bars: rhythm, the other half of theory.
More practice on · Music
Intervals, scales and chords
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