Alternatives
Products that do what I built a music theory course with games and spaced repetition does
I’ve spent a year building a theory learning path that starts from scratch and goes all the way up to topics like Secondary Dominants and Borrowed Chords. It uses a combination of games, interactive lessons and spaced repetition to help you understand and remember concepts. Not just learn something new and forget it in a few days. I’m trying to figure out: 1. Is the progression logical? 2. What am I missing that you’d like to see in there? 3. Where does it get confusing and could use more clarification?
- 1IC
Hey guys I've been playing the guitar for many years but I felt like I had hit a wall and wasnt making progress. One of the things I realized was holding me back was unfamiliarity with the fretboard. I'd often find myself in situations like “Uhh…Where’s the C# here?” “Where’s the flat-3rd of this root on the 4th string?” “Sure would be nice to know the closest min7 triad shape to play over here..” I tried memorizing the fretboard the obvious way but it extreeemly boring for me. Being a developer, I decided to turn it into a game. I'd love for you guys to try it out and let me know what you…
2023 · fretboardfly.com
- 2CA
Hello HN, I just released this music theory and ear training mobile app for guitar which I've been working on for a bit more than a year on the side. The idea was to make something for the eternally "intermediate" guitarist (myself included). There are a lot of beginner apps which rely on learning songs, toolkits which give you a bunch of stuff with no explanation but not many in-between apps to actually learn and practice more generic and somewhat advanced stuff. The app contains short lessons, recaps and most importantly challenges (visual, audio and pure theory) along with a very complete…
Oct 2025 · cadenceguitar.com
- 3IM
Jan 2026 · lend-me-your-ears.specr.net
- 4IM
Hey, maker here. After launching a daily word search game, I randomly thought of this math game while driving. Finally got around to making it and I think it turned out pretty cool. It’s a math search game that’s meant to help you practice your quick addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division skills. I’m hoping it’ll help people (even those like me who aren’t big on math) learn and increase their speeds. (There are also some settings you can enable to make the game harder) If you try it out, please let me know if you found it fun, if you have anything you’d like me to add, or if you…
2024 · worchle.com
- 5AS
Hi Hacker News, I've created Chord Nebula, a simple web-based game designed to help users learn and practice piano chords, basic progressions, and harmony fundamentals. The game integrates with MIDI keyboards, allowing you to play chords in real-time and receive immediate feedback based on the key you choose. GitHub Repository: https://github.com/yottanami/chord_nebula Live Demo: https://chords.yottanami.com Requirements: To use Chord Nebula, you'll need a MIDI keyboard connected to your computer. Current Status: Chord Nebula is still a simple project. I'm…
2024 · chords.yottanami.com
- 6AA
This is an web audio experiment I've been wanting to do for a long time. Basically an ambient music composition, but all the sound elements are laid out in space, and that musical space can be explored freely. It's definitely inspired by in-world music that sometimes appears in games. I basically took that concept, keeping the music aspect, and dropping the entire "game" aspect. I also turned it into a more "traditional" non-interactive album, but since I started with code, why not program the whole thing? Had a blast making the entire album from code, the complete source for the album is…
2024 · ambient.garden
- 7CP
2017 · peterburk.github.io
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- 9IB
Hey show HN! This course came about as a result of wanting a more targeted way of practicing using new vim commands I wanted to pick up, rather than just trying to use them in my regular code editing sessions. When I would try to use new commands during code editing, my productivity took a hit because I was trying to do two different things at once: thinking about code vs practicing my muscle memory. So, I made a separate environment for practicing, one that had an interactive editor, progress tracking, and achievement goals to let me see which areas I should work on, like speed and…
2022 · vimified.com
- 10PP
Hi all! Thanks for checking out the side project my family and I have been working on (on and off) for the past year. We were playing wordle when we thought: wouldn't it be fun if you had to guess musical notes (ABCDEFG) instead of words? And what if the notes you had to guess were actually the first six notes of a familiar melody? My brother and I both have perfect pitch, which has been really helpful when we want to cover a song that we like, or improvise in a jazz or blue grass setting. We don’t promise that this game will help you gain perfect pitch, but it is possible to train your ear…
2023 · perfectpitchpuzzle.com
- 11IM
This started out when I vibe-coded a guitar scale fingering generator. It came out pretty good, and I started adding stuff to it: chords, then how chords and scales interact. Then I added charts for other instruments I mess around with: piano, cello, alto recorder. There's a complexity toggle to go from basic harmony to extended/experimental stuff. It's honestly still mostly a toy, but I thought other people might be interested in playing with it. Source is on github, so it's easy enough to run locally and fork. https://github.com/aleshh/gtr-scales
May 2026 · projects.alesh.com
- 12GI
Hi all! I'm going into my freshman year, and figured that the best way to prepare for the intro to programming Racket course would be to implement my own garbage-collected, dynamically typed, functional programming language in C ;) Anyways... here's the repo: https://github.com/liam-ilan/crumb I started learning C over the summer, so I still have a whole lot to learn... Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! :D
2023
- 13TY
I'm excited to share with HN a new pet project I've been working on to explore how AI can create and explain harmonic chord progressions - Chord Variations. The project uses GPT-4 to generate unique and interesting chord combinations based on user input chord progression. It's akin to having a virtual musical assistant that can help non-musicians and musicians alike explore and create harmonious sound without needing any prior knowledge of music theory. The generated chord suggestions maintain a similar vibe to the user input. Alternative chord progression includes extended chords, chord…
2023 · chord-alt.vercel.app
- 14IR
This course was intended for ages 7 and up, including adults. I really tried to make the material accessible to everyone, and hopefully not be too boring, while it establishes a solid foundation for learning anything else. If you do watch it, let me know if it is helpful in getting a solid foundation! My background: Before I got full-time into software development, I was doing a Ph. D in math at NYU. I thought YouTube needed something like this.
2023 · youtube.com
- 15HW
2019 · harmopark.app
- 16IM
Hey! I’m JC. I’m 17 and part of Hack Club, a nonprofit where we help teenagers ship programming projects with their friends while growing technically. A while ago, I asked myself the question, “How exactly do programming languages work behind the scenes?” It seemed really daunting until I went to a half hour workshop at a high school hackathon about writing a tree-walk interpreter and realized that getting started was actually super fun. This guide is designed in the vein of that - to get people, especially teenagers, started on learning how to build a programming language in a literal…
2024 · easel.hackclub.com
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- 19AG
OP here. This is a geometric decoding of Chopin's Prelude No. 4. I built a 3D music midi visualizer ( https://github.com/jimishol/cholidean-harmony-structure ) and realized that standard music theory couldn't explain the shapes I was seeing. So, I developed the Umbilic-Surface Grammar to map the topology of the harmony. This document demonstrates that the prelude's tension isn't random, but a rigorous conflict between 'Gravity' (Station Shifts) and 'Will' (Pivots). I am looking for feedback on the logic—specifically from anyone with a background in topology or music…
Feb 2026 · github.com
- 20

The interactive curriculum for stuck guitar players.
Apr 2026 · nowurplaying.com
- 21PA
I built this app because I realized that I forgot about a song for a while and therefore got a lot worse at that song. The app will make you play your lowest-proficiency songs (something you just started learning) daily. Medium-proficiency songs (you can play them, but you have room for improvement) get played several times a week. High-proficiency songs (you have mastered them) are cycled through at the rate of approximately one-two per day. This app is in no way complete and probably contains bugs. With that being said, I have been daily-driving it in its current state for several days…
2023 · github.com
- 22LP
Hi! I am doing a learning project, attempting to build an imperative language (and interpreter). The end product will be useless for others, I just want to learn and better understand how to build imperative languages. :) If someone else shares this interest and want to give some good hints on good resources I would be grateful. Currently I am looking at an awesome text by Bob Nystrom. All suggestions and tips on resources are most welcome. I am very much a beginner in this, but I find this topic very fascinating. Mail me or post links here! Cheers! You can try a beta version Online at…
2020
- 23IM
I've been playing with this for quite some time and I think it's finally ready for public consumption. All feedback welcome.
2025 · madmonk13.github.io
- 24JP
Hello HN, Every time I tried to learn new subject through internet. I am confused by the resources. - Which one will worth my time? - which ones are reliable or relevant? Eventually I open infinite amount of tabs and close them without browsing. Finding right material and resource is hard in this era. Yet we believe lifelong learning is a meaningful way to live your life. I'm Firat co-founder of Jooseph: https://www.jooseph.com/ Jooseph is basically playlist for learning. You can follow modules curated from different resources. You can also your learning journey to guide other…
2020
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