Music Box
A free music toy that runs in your browser. A grid of coloured squares, six rows of notes and anywhere from four to eight beats. Tap squares to build a tune, press play and it loops. Swap the sound whenever you like. There is no wrong answer on this screen.
- Free
- No ads
- No account
- No download
- Works offline
- Single player
How do you play?
- Light some squares - Every row is a different note. High at the top, low at the bottom, one colour each.
- Press play - The tune runs left to right and starts again, over and over, until you stop it.
- Change the sound - Three buttons: round, soft and bright. The same tune arrives sounding like a different toy.
- Ask for a surprise - The sparkle button deals a ready-made melody, one note per beat, and you edit from there.
- Make it longer - Four, six or eight beats. Notes that still fit in the new length stay exactly where they were.
About this game
Tap a square. It lights up and plays a note. Tap a few more. Press play. What you made comes round again every couple of seconds until you stop it.
An eight-beat grid holds 281,474,976,710,656 different tunes, because each of its 48 squares is on or off independently of the rest. That is a count rather than an estimate. And every one of those tunes sounds fine, which is also checkable rather than a promise: the six notes on the grid are a pentatonic scale, and across all 15 pairs you can make from them there is no semitone anywhere and no tritone anywhere. The closest two notes sit a whole tone apart. That is why nothing here needs a rule about which note may follow which, and why you can light a whole column at once and still have somebody nod along.
The surprise button lights one note per beat. A melody, then. It reaches 1,679,616 of them on the long grid, and you carry on by hand from wherever it drops you.
Now the honest bit, and it is in the code rather than in an opinion. The record counts notes and never quality. Busy beats pretty. The biggest number anybody can reach is 48, which means every square lit on the long grid, and that is a wall of sound rather than a tune. So the number rewards busy over good, and we knew that when we chose it. The only way to measure quality is to sit in judgement on the thing a child has just made, which is exactly the reason our colouring game keeps no record at all.
What does it teach?
Pitch
Higher row, higher note. That link is visible before it is audible, and a child picks it up with nobody explaining it.
Pulse and repetition
The loop comes back to the same beats every time. For a lot of children this is the first musical pattern they set themselves.
Cause and effect
One square on, one more note. Nothing hidden happens between the tap and the result.
Making without being marked
There is no right answer on this screen. That is rare, and it is what gets children trying things they would never try in a game that counts mistakes.
Tips
Start with a surprise
A blank grid is not an invitation. A ready melody you can change one note of is a far kinder place to start, especially for somebody small.
A column is a chord
Several notes on the same beat ring together, and in this scale that always works. Try one crowded column beside three sparse ones.
Leave gaps
An empty beat is audible. A tune with something on every beat flattens into noise, and the silences are what give it a shape.
Same tune, three ways
Before you change a note, change the voice and listen again. Those identical squares can sound like a music box, a flute or an old toy.
What age is it for?
2 to 3
The squares make a sound when touched, and that is enough. Four beats keeps the grid small and finger-friendly.
4 to 5
Where listening and then changing something begins. Surprise, then move one note, is exactly that step.
6 and up
Eight beats and crowded columns. For a challenge: build a tune with a part you can hear coming back.
Grown-ups
Forty-eight squares and three voices go further than they look, and the scale means every experiment lands somewhere reasonable.
Accessibility
One tap per action, with no dragging and no press-and-hold, so it works with alternative input devices and with a small hand that does not aim well yet. There is no clock, no countdown and no moment that has to be answered quickly. Every square is labelled with its beat number and whether it is on or off, so a screen reader can tell forty-eight of them apart instead of reading the same thing forty-eight times. One thing has to be said plainly here: this is a game that makes a sound, so without hearing, part of it is gone. The row sets the colour and the height of a square on screen sets the pitch, so a tune can be seen as well as heard, but it cannot be heard by looking. The loop also stops on its own when the tab goes away.
Playing together
A square each
Take turns lighting one square with no plan at all, and listen after every third. What comes out is something neither of you would have written.
Spot the change
One of you moves a single note while the other closes their eyes and listens. Guess which one, then swap over.
Sing over it
The loop keeps steady time, so you can sing on top of it. That is where a tune stops being a game and starts being a song.
Give it a name
When one comes out well, name it. A child who has named their tune comes back to it tomorrow.
Common questions
Can you play something wrong?
No, and there is no way to. The six notes come from a pentatonic scale, which contains no semitone and no tritone, so any combination of them agrees with itself. A column of all six included.
Does my tune get saved?
Yes, on the device. Come back and it is exactly as you left it, chosen sound and all. One tune is kept per length.
What happens to my tune when I change the length?
It survives. The grid grows or shrinks and the notes stay put, which is deliberately unlike every other game here. Going from eight beats down to four keeps about half of them.
How many tunes are possible?
281,474,976,710,656 on an eight-beat grid, because 48 squares are each on or off. The surprise button on its own reaches 1,679,616 of those.
How do you earn coins?
One coin for every six notes the tune grows by. Erasing does not take back a coin already given, and re-adding the same notes does not pay twice.
Can I record or download the tune?
Not at the moment. It plays and it is stored on the device, and there is no way to export it as a file.
Why only three sounds?
Because three buttons fit across the bottom of a phone at a size a small finger can hit. A longer list would need scrolling, and then it stops being a toy.
Is it free?
Yes. No payment, nothing to buy inside the game, and no larger paid edition.
Are there ads?
None. No banners, and nothing that plays in between.
Do I need to download or sign up?
No. It runs in the browser, and after one visit it is stored on the device and works with no signal.
How is the record measured?
By how many notes are in the biggest tune built, kept separately for each length. It measures how much was made rather than how good it is, and that is a decision rather than an oversight.