A free, ad-free tool for drilling chords by memory — and learning to play them, not just name them. This guide walks through every control, card, and playing style.
A chord name appears (for example G7). You play it on your piano or keyboard. After a set time — or when you press Next — a new random chord follows. Over many repetitions you build the reflex of turning a chord symbol straight into finger positions.
But every chord also comes with context a teacher would give you: a real progression the chord lives in, the reasoning behind it, and several pianistic ways to actually play that progression — each one playable so you can hear it.
Begins or ends a practice session. The session counter (chords played · elapsed time) shows while running.
Jumps to a new random chord immediately. Available in Manual mode (and any time via Space).
Opens the options panel: interval, chord types, and the on/off toggles.
Expands the app to fill the screen — handy on a music stand or tablet.
Opens this page.
In timed mode, how many seconds each chord stays before the next appears. A countdown bar shows the time left. Ignored in Manual mode.
Triads only (major, minor, diminished, augmented), Extended / complex (7ths, 9ths, sus, add, 6ths…), or All chords.
On = you advance with Next / Space. Off = chords change automatically on the timer.
Reveals the chord’s note names under the symbol. Turn off to test recall.
Shows the color-coded keyboard diagram highlighting the chord.
Draws the chord and progression on a musical staff (pentagram), and each playing style as a grand-staff “piano-roll” showing its left- and right-hand pattern over time.
Randomly voices each chord in root position or an inversion, and labels which one. Great for drilling voicings and bass notes.
Plays the chord through your speakers each time it changes (Web Audio — no files, works offline).
Reads the chord name aloud for hands-free, eyes-on-the-keys practice.
The big chord symbol, its full name, the constituent notes, and a short description of how it’s built and where it’s used. With Inversions on, it also names the inversion and which note is in the bass.
The highlighted keys show the chord, color-coded by each note’s harmonic role, with interval labels (R, 3, 5, ♭7…) on the keys:
The current chord shown in context — a real progression it belongs to, with roman numerals above each chord and the current one highlighted. The Play button sounds it as block chords. Below it, “why it works” explains the harmonic logic in plain language.
The same progression, rendered several different pianistic ways. Each style lists what the left and right hands do, has its own ▶ Play button so you can hear the texture, and (with notation on) a grand staff showing the pattern as a piano-roll — note-heads placed by time and pitch, bass clef for the left hand, treble for the right, bar lines per chord. The chord-tones reference line at the top lists the notes of each chord for quick lookup. See the glossary below for what each style means.
The progression arranged into a complete song — intro, verse, chorus, an optional bridge, and an outro that resolves home to the tonic. Each section uses a different texture and dynamic (soft intro, fuller chorus, slowing outro), shown as a chord chart with the feel to aim for. Press ▶ Play to hear the whole arrangement end to end, and read it on the grand staff below (with notation on). It’s a worked example of how a few chords become a piece you can actually play through.
These are the textures that appear under “Ways to play it.” Which ones show depends on the chord — jazzier voicings for 7ths and 9ths, classical patterns for triads.
Both hands hit the chord together — LH root + octave, RH the full chord. The clean way to hear the changes before decorating them.
LH holds root and 5th on the pedal; RH rolls the chord tones up and down in even 8ths. A shimmering, song-like texture.
LH plays root–5th–3rd–5th in steady 8ths while RH holds a melody. The engine of countless Classical-era pieces.
LH leaps between a low bass note (beats 1 & 3) and a mid chord (beats 2 & 4) — the “oom-pah” — under a RH melody.
An “oom-pah-pah”: LH bass on beat 1, chord on beats 2 and 3, with a RH melody on top.
LH stacks the 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th close together and drops the root (a bassist covers it); RH adds a color tone. Comped in a syncopated rhythm — the modern jazz piano sound.
LH root only; RH just the 3rd and 7th — the two notes that define the chord. Across a ii–V–I they move by the smoothest possible voice-leading.
LH alternates the root and the 10th (the 3rd, an octave-plus up) for a rich, wide bass; RH plays a sparse upper arpeggio. Roll the tenths if you can’t reach them.
LH a calm two-feel — root on 1, 5th on 3; RH a rootless chord comped in a syncopated bossa rhythm that pushes just before the beat. Light and unhurried.
LH an eight-to-the-bar ostinato climbing root–3rd–5th–6th–♭7 and back; RH chord stabs on the backbeat. The rolling blues/rock-’n’-roll engine.
LH a four-to-the-bar quarter-note line that walks through chord tones and a chromatic step into the next chord; RH light off-beat stabs. Propulsive swing.
Chords built from stacked perfect 4ths instead of 3rds (the “So What” sound). LH root, RH the quartal stack. Open, modern, ambiguous — great for minor/modal vamps.
Lush gospel/R&B comping. LH root anchors beats 1 and 3; RH a full extended voicing re-articulated in a busy 16th-note groove with grace-note slides.
Big and anthemic. LH a root–5th power foundation pulsing in 8ths; RH the top note doubled in octaves as a driving melody.
A wide, harp-like roll from the low bass up through the extensions, left ringing on the pedal — LH low, RH high. Played freely, out of strict tempo. Perfect for ballad intros.
Chords are numbered by their position in the key: I is the home chord (tonic), V the dominant, and so on. Uppercase = major, lowercase = minor, ° = diminished, ø = half-diminished, + = augmented. A flat (♭III, ♭VII) means the root is borrowed from outside the major scale.
The number after a chord is the interval the “color note” sits above the root — a 7th, a 9th, etc. The interval labels on the piano (R, ♭3, 3, 5, ♭7…) count semitones from the root, so you can see exactly what makes a chord major, minor, dominant, and so on.
Inverting a chord doesn’t change its name or function — just which note is lowest, and therefore its color and how smoothly it connects to neighbours.
Note on spelling: chords are spelled with sharps or flats to stay readable, so you may occasionally see an enharmonic equivalent (e.g. A♯ vs B♭) — they’re the same key on the piano.
The trainer runs entirely in your browser. All sound is generated live with the Web Audio API — there are no audio files to download — so once the page has loaded it keeps working offline. There are no ads, and no account or personal data is required to practice.
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