The top 21 Online Music Games for Teaching

By Jade Bultitude
Last Update:

Teaching beginner music theory and musicianship to your students whilst online is quite tricky! If you are like me, during live lessons I love to play games with my beginner pupils to keep the learning of the technical aspects of music theory fun! I have now begun to compile a list of online music games!

online music, online music games, online music lessons

My live games will often include clapping rhythms (I’m sure you’ve all heard of the infamous ‘don’t clap this one back’), singing, matching games, flash cards among many more!

However, since we have gone online, this has all changed and we are now having to create the same experience but over a computer screen! If I am totally honest when we first went online, I struggled a lot with this. I was a brand new mum to newborn twins and was very overwhelmed! I kept on my students who I knew best and didn’t focus too much on new students. Now we are almost a year later and I am beginning to reintroduce beginner students back into my timetable! 

With this in mind I have been researching new ways to get my normal fun games aspect into my online lessons! It is also an excellent ice breaker with new students and also adds another aspect to what otherwise could be quite a dull experience. Sitting in front of a computer is definitely not what I had in mind when becoming a music teacher! 

Luckily there are many amazing websites out there with hundreds of fabulous games we can use. Whether you want to teach your students about composers, rhythms, instruments of the orchestra or anything at all, there is something out there! 

Below I have listed some of the fantastic games I have found! I am also working on creating some new ones to go on my website, so watch this space! 

Online music games – learn your Composers!

composer, famous composer

Composer Matching Game – This game involves matching up a composer to a relevant piece that they have written! Great if you want your students to improve their musicianship!

Composer Hang Man – A hangman-style game to learn about composers but also instruments of the orchestra!

online music games – learn the Instruments of the orchestra! 

orchestra, learn the instruments of the orchestra, instruments

Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra Game – this uses Benjamin Britten’s famous piece ‘the young person’s guide to the orchestra’ to help teach your students about the instruments of the orchestra! They will also learn many facts about the composer Benjamin Britten!

Instruments of the Orchestra Wordsearch – Many different puzzles, such as word searches to learn instruments of the orchestra. It uses clues for you to guess which instrument .

Unscramble the instruments – unscramble the name of the musical instruments 

Instrument Family Quiz – A great instrument family quiz! 

Who Wants to be a Millionaire?! – This is a who wants to be a millionaire-style quiz that is linked to learning your musical instruments!

online music games – Note Learning!

note learning, learn your music notes, music notes

Music Note Flash Cards – This site provides you with flash cards you can use with your students to learn notes!

Learn your notes on the stave! – This website will show a note on the stave (there are all four clefs to choose from!) and it will also play the note. The student will then have to click the correct one and receive a score!

Catch the Coin!  – This is a fun game! A note is given in the top corner and you have to catch the falling coins that say the correct note on into your treasure chest!

Learn your notes on the piano! – This is a great game for learning the notes on the piano keyboard! 

online music games – learn your key signatures!

key signature, online games to learn key signature

Match the key signature – This website will give you a key and then the student has to click the relevant key signature in the circle of fifths! 

online music games – Recognise your intervals and train those ears!

ear training, aural training, online ear training

ToneGym- The Ultimate Ear Training App

ToneGym allows you to improve your ear with a range of games, interactive and competitions.

Or check out our complete review of ToneGym.

ToneGym, three dashboards, computer

Listen and recognise the interval – This game will play an interval and you need to recognize what the interval is. I have found this one to be especially useful as often I don’t have a piano in the lessons. 

Ear Training website – This website has many options for ear training right up to more advanced games you can use with older pupils. 

Good Ear Training –  Lots of ear training exercises for beginners and more advanced pupils.

Teoria training – This website gives great exercises for ear training for beginners up to the more advanced! 

online music games – learn your Rhythms and time signatures

time signatures, rhythms, learn your time signatures, learn your rhythms

Learn your note values – This game asks your student to choose the note length that lasts for the specific Number specified. 

Complete the rhythm – This game will encourage your student to complete a given rhythm in many different time signatures!

Recognise the flying note lengths! – This game will help you recognize different note lengths by catching them as they fly out of the machine!

Compose your own rhythm! – This game encourages you to compose fun rhythms using a grid! Great for teaching rhythms and pulse!

Advanced Music Theory Tutorials – This website includes more advanced music theory tutorials! 

If you know of any more great websites then let me know and put them in the comments! This is a strange time we are living in and community is so important to keep us sane!

More Music Theory

Check out our free music theory resources which include an interactive circle of fifths, time signature quiz and performance direction quizzes.

We also have hundreds or free worksheets to download to help you ace music theory!

Photo of author
AUTHOR
Jade is a flute player and music educator with a passion for educating the next generation of musicians. She is a Masters Graduate from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. Jade has been helping people learn music theory for more than 10 years from pre school children all the way to degree level studies.