Music & Rhythm
37 tools
Practice material and writing prompts for musicians: a scale to work on, a key signature to identify, a chord to build, a progression to try, or a bar of rhythm to clap. These are calculated from music theory rather than drawn from a list, so the spellings are correct — F major gives you B flat, not A sharp — and every bar of rhythm adds up to its time signature.
Showing 37 of 37 tools.
Theory practice
- Random Chord Progression GeneratorGenerate a chord progression in any key — either a well-known pattern or a fresh sequence — with Roman numerals and the actual chord names.
- Circle of Fifths Drill GeneratorDrills the circle of fifths as questions rather than a diagram — key signatures, relative minors, neighbours and the order of sharps and flats.
- Random Mode GeneratorDraws one of the seven modes with its notes, its parent scale, the one note that gives it its character and what it sounds like against a drone.
- Random Scale GeneratorDraw a random scale to practise — major, minor, modal, pentatonic or blues — correctly spelled, with its key signature and degree numbers.
- Interval Practice GeneratorInterval questions with correct answers — name it, build it or invert it — spelled properly, so an augmented 4th is never called a diminished 5th.
- Random Chord GeneratorDraw a random chord — a triad or a seventh chord — with the notes it is built from and the intervals between them.
- Ear Training Prompt GeneratorDraws intervals to play and sing back, with the reference song most people use to remember each one and the answer hidden until you commit.
- Chord Inversion GeneratorDraws a chord in a specific inversion, with the bass note, the figured-bass symbol and the slash-chord name all given.
- Random Key Signature GeneratorDrill key signatures — draw a random key and check how many sharps or flats it has, which ones, and what its relative major or minor is.
- Harmonic Series CalculatorThe partials above a fundamental, with how far each sits from the nearest equal-tempered step above that fundamental — the seventh is famously 31 cents flat.
- Pivot Chord Modulation GeneratorFinds a chord that belongs to two keys at once and writes the progression that turns on it into the new key.
- Temperament Cents CalculatorShows how far each equal-tempered interval sits from the pure ratio, in cents and in beats you could count.
- Mode Rotation CalculatorRotates any scale through all its modes, and explains why symmetrical scales have far fewer than their degrees suggest.
- Chord Voicing GeneratorVoices a progression in four parts so each voice moves as little as it can, with parallel fifths and octaves detected rather than assumed away.
- Tuning Temperament ComparisonBuilds six historical temperaments from the chain of fifths each was defined by, and shows the major third you get in every key.
- Change Ringing Method GeneratorBuilds a bell-ringing method on four to eight bells — its place notation and the whole plain course it rings — where no bell moves more than one place a blow and no ordering comes up twice before rounds returns.
Practice planning
- Practice Routine GeneratorA practice session broken into timed segments that add up to exactly the time you have, with a real activity for each and your instrument taken into account.
- Tempo Ladder GeneratorThe metronome marks to work a passage up to speed, spaced so every step is the same amount harder — with the seconds per beat for each.
Writing & improvising
- Random Melody GeneratorA note sequence in a key you choose, under constraints you set — how far it may leap, what shape it takes, and whether it resolves.
- Songwriting Constraint GeneratorA complete brief to write to — key, tempo, time signature, chord progression, song form and one restriction to work against.
- Improvisation Constraint GeneratorA rule to improvise under — three notes only, no repeated rhythms, never leap more than a third — because a constraint produces more ideas than a blank page.
- Twelve-Tone Row GeneratorA tone row using all twelve pitch classes once, with its full twelve-by-twelve matrix of prime, retrograde, inverted and retrograde-inverted forms.
Rhythm
- Rhythm Reading Challenge GeneratorA bar of rhythm to clap or play at sight, with the counting hidden until you have committed — sight-reading practice that never repeats.
- Random Time Signature GeneratorDraws a time signature and explains what it actually means — how many beats, how they group, and what to count out loud.
- Random Rhythm GeneratorGenerate bars of rhythm to clap or play, in any time signature, with counting written underneath and every bar adding up exactly.
- Random Drum Pattern GeneratorGenerate a drum pattern on a step grid — kick, snare and hi-hat laid out bar by bar, in simple or compound time.
- Random Tempo GeneratorDraw a random tempo in beats per minute, with the Italian marking that covers it and how long a bar lasts at that speed.
- Euclidean Rhythm GeneratorHits spread as evenly as a cycle allows, using the algorithm that reproduces traditional rhythms from a dozen musical cultures.
- Polyrhythm GeneratorTwo voices at different subdivisions, with the cycle length and the number of coinciding beats both computed from arithmetic.
- Time Signature ConverterHow many bars of one time signature equal a passage in another, with the total duration proved unchanged.
- Tempo and Note Length CalculatorConverts a tempo into the length of every note value in milliseconds, including dotted and triplet, with the conversion inverted as a check.
Guitar & fretboard
- Guitar Chord Shape FinderSearches the fretboard for shapes that play any chord in any of six tunings, ranked easiest first, with every note named and checked.
- Chord Chart TransposerTransposes a pasted chord chart by any number of semitones without touching the words, and works out where the capo goes for every position.
- Fretboard Note FinderEvery place a note appears on the neck, in any tuning, worked out by counting semitones rather than read from a chart.
- Capo Position CalculatorWhich capo position turns an awkward key into open chord shapes, with every option's shapes worked out and checked.
More tools
Also useful for music
Choosing the right music tool
These tools compute rather than pick. A scale is spelled out letter by letter from its tonic, which is why the same note can appear as B flat in one key and A sharp in another; a generator that only tracked pitch numbers would get that wrong and teach it wrong. The rhythm tools fill each bar to exactly the capacity its time signature allows, so a printed pattern is always playable. Nothing here plays audio or engraves the music it generates — the output is text and grids you can read, copy into a notebook or hand out. The one thing drawn is blank: the Manuscript Paper Generator prints empty staves and tab to write the result on.
- Random Scale Generator
- You want a scale to practise, correctly spelled, with its key signature and fingering-friendly note list.
- Random Key Signature Generator
- You are drilling key recognition — how many sharps or flats a key has, and which ones.
- Random Chord Generator
- You want a single chord to build or identify, with the notes it is made from.
- Random Chord Progression Generator
- You are writing and want somewhere to start — a progression in a chosen key, with Roman numerals.
- Random Rhythm Generator
- You want a bar or four of rhythm to read, clap or play, with counting written underneath.
- Random Drum Pattern Generator
- You want a groove laid out on a grid rather than a melodic rhythm to sight-read.
- Random Tempo Generator
- You want a metronome marking and the Italian term that goes with it.
Every tool in this category draws its results in your browser. How Generate Random works explains how the randomness is produced and what happens to anything you type in.