Meet Chordle!

Looking for a fun music game for you and your music students? Meet Chordle! I had the pleasure of meeting with its creator, Nate May, a few weeks ago and I love what he has created. Chordle is part of a larger project that Nate runs called Synthase which focuses on curriculum and training. Chordle is a great way to have fun learning about chords and their many shapes and colors. If you are a fan of Wordle and Byrdle, then Chordle is definitely a site to bookmark. Here is how it works:

When you first land on Chordle, you’ll see the instructions below. In a nutshell, you basically get 4 guesses to find the correct seventh chord. It’s actually quite fun! If you enter a C dominant 7th chord, Chordle will let you know of any of the chord tones are part of the hidden chord. Yellow means that the note is in the chord but not in the correct position, and green means that the note is in the correct place. There are only 4 possible 7th chords - Major 7th, Dominant 7th, Minor 7th and Half-Diminished 7th.

So in the example below, you’ll see that my first guess was a C Major 7th chord. I entered the notes (by clicking on the circles) I got the E and G correct - but not in the right position. I then guessed an E minor 7th chord. I got the E, G & D correct - but again in the wrong position. My third guess was a G minor 7th chord - and I got 3 out of 4 notes in the correct position, which meant that the answer was a G Half-Diminished chord.

There are a few buttons that help with your guesses on the right - Rotate Clockwise, Rotate Counter-Clockwise (these rotate buttons simply rotate the circle on the bottom), Flip Enharmonics, Backspace (which you’ll be using a lot if you’re anything like me) and Enter.

Once you get the correct answer, Chordle gives you some information about the chord you found, common uses of the chord, and a Share function that allows you to share your efforts with others.

In my opinion, Chordle is the PERFECT game for students when they are learning about 7th chords. It’s also a great alternative to Wordle and Byrdle. Hope you find this game as fun as I do!