Games

Musicianship is usually taught as one subject and practised as several. Reading a note, placing it in time, recognising it by ear, and finding it on your instrument are four separate reflexes, and being fluent at one buys you surprisingly little of the others — which is why a player can sight read competently and still not be able to work out a tune by ear, or hear harmony well and still count badly.

The games here split along those lines on purpose. Sight Reader trains recognition of written pitch. Rhythm Lab trains placement in time and measures it in milliseconds rather than opinions. Ear Training trains interval and chord recognition. Woodwind Fingerings trains the map from a written note to a physical shape. Each one is short, scored, and repeatable, because all four reflexes respond to frequent brief practice far better than to occasional long sessions.

Nothing here needs an account. Making one saves your progress, files your runs on the leaderboards, and tracks ranks and achievements across sessions, which is worth having once a drill stops being a novelty and starts being a habit.

A browser. Everything runs client-side, including the audio and the notation engraving, so there is nothing to install and nothing to wait for after the first load.

A MIDI keyboard, a practice pad, or a microphone will each be used if you have one — the input picker finds them — but every game is fully playable with a mouse, a touchscreen, or the keyboard you already have. Rhythm Lab maps your left and right hands to F and J when there is no pad connected.