9 Multi-Sensory Chord Games and Activities for Piano Lessons (2025)

  • ByMelody Payne
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9 Multi-Sensory Chord Games and Activities for Piano Lessons (1)

Understanding chord qualities is an essential part of our piano students’ musical development, but helping students truly grasp this concept can be challenging, especially when we’re teaching different age groups and levels with different learning styles, preferences, and needs.

My favorite way to help students with the challenge of chord qualities is to use a variety of chord games that involve multiple senses.

Research shows that multi-sensory learning can be very powerful in music education, but what is multi-sensory learning?

Multi-sensory learning helps music students grasp concepts more deeply by engaging multiple senses at once.

When students can see the music on the page, hear it played, feel it under their fingers, and even move to it, they’re much more likely to understand and remember what they’re learning.

That’s why learning chords with chord games and activities makes the learning process more effective and fun!

when teaching a new chord using Chord Games, students can*:
  • See the notes written on the grand staff
  • Hear how the chord sounds when played
  • Feel the shape of the chord under their fingers at the piano
  • Write the chord themselves for extra reinforcement
  • Say the chord name and spell it out loud
  • Build the chord on a magnetic staff board or vinyl floor staff

This kind of active, engaging learning creates stronger neural connections and helps students develop a deeper understanding of music concepts.

Studies have found that our brains are uniquely equipped to integrate information from multiple senses when learning music (Zimmerman and Lahav, 2012), and when students engage with musical concepts through multiple senses, they retain information better and develop stronger independent learning skills (Goh et al., 2017).

That’s why using flash cards can be so effective – they combine visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning to help students learn in a way that sticks.

Here are 10 flash card-based chord games that appeal to the senses in ways that will help students learn major, minor, augmented, and diminished chords.

Listening Chord Games: Hearing the Chords

1. Chord Detective: Solve the Chord Mystery with A Quick Listening Game

Objective: Students will identify the quality of the chord they hear.

Materials:

  • One set of chord cards
  • One set of chord quality cards that say Major, Minor, Diminished, Augmented (page 15 in the download)
  • Piano or keyboard
  • Optional: Magnifying glass or detective hat for the detective

Instructions:

  • Select the chord cards you need for the student. Begin with only major and minor if the student hasn’t been introduced to chord qualities.
  • Shuffle the chord cards and place them face down in a pile at the piano.
  • Give the student the chord quality cards that say Major, Minor, Diminished, Augmented, or only Major and Minor if this is the student’s first time working on chord qualities.
  • Prep: The teacher demonstrates the sound of various major and minor chords until the student can identify them aurally.
  • Private Lessons: The student draws a chord card. The teacher plays the chord. The student is the detective who identifies the quality and holds up a quality card (Major, Minor, Diminished, Augmented).
  • Group Lessons: Students take turns being the detective while others play different chord qualities.
  • *For optimal learning, incorporate one or more of these ideas.
9 Multi-Sensory Chord Games and Activities for Piano Lessons (2)

2. Chord Quality Train: All Aboard for A Quick Chord Game!

Objective: Students will identify the quality of the chord they hear and arrange their chord quality chords in the correct order to make a chord quality train.

Materials:

  • Multiple sets of chord cards for each student (the ones that say Major, Minor, Diminished, Augmented, page 15 in the download)
  • Piano
  • Optional: Train engineer hat

Instructions:

  • Select the chord cards you need for the student. Begin with only major and minor if the student hasn’t yet been introduced to chord qualities. Give the cards to the student.
  • Prep: The teacher demonstrates the sound of various major and minor chords until the student can identify them aurally.
  • Private Lessons: The teacher plays a sequence of three chords. The student identifies the quality of each chord and arranges their cards in order. For example, the teacher might play Major, Major, Minor. The student would find the cards that say Major, Major, Minor and create a chord quality train.
  • Group Lessons: One student plays a sequence of three chords while the others write down their guesses. The students take turns playing the sequence of chords.
  • *For optimal learning, incorporate one or more of these ideas.
9 Multi-Sensory Chord Games and Activities for Piano Lessons (3)

Visual Chord Games: Seeing the Chords

3. Chord Flash Card Sprint: Race to Identify the Chords

Objective: Students will sort cards into piles by visually identifying the chord quality.

Materials:

  • Complete set of chord cards, or the specific cards that are best for each student
  • Timer (phone or stopwatch)
  • Optional: Whistle for the coach (the teacher)

Instructions:

  • Shuffle the chord cards.
  • Place the cards face down.
  • Private Lessons: The teacher blows the whistle (optional) and times how quickly students can correctly sort the cards into piles by chord quality.
  • Group Lessons: The teacher blows the whistle (optional) and teams compete to sort the cards. The team who can sorts the cards the most quickly and accurately wins.
  • *For optimal learning, incorporate one or more of these ideas.
9 Multi-Sensory Chord Games and Activities for Piano Lessons (4)

4. Chord Match-Up: Grab the Matching Chords!

Objective: Students will match chords to the correct chord name.

Materials:

Instructions:

  • Shuffle the set of chord cards and the set of chord name cards.
  • Place the two sets of cards face up on a table.
  • Private Lessons: Students match notation cards with corresponding chord symbol cards.
  • Group Lessons: Create matching stations where pairs of students work together to match sets.
  • *For optimal learning, incorporate one or more of these ideas.
9 Multi-Sensory Chord Games and Activities for Piano Lessons (5)

5. Chord Challenge: Finding Chords of a Given Key

Objective: Students create chords of a given key, based on the notes of the major scale. For example, if the given key is C Major, students will find all of the chords of the key of C: C major, D minor, E minor, F major, etc., cards.

Materials:

  • Complete set of chord cards

Instructions:

  • Choose a key to work in. The key of C major is a great place to start.
  • Private Lessons: Students arrange the chord cards in order for the given key. If C major is the given key, students will find these chords and arrange them in order: C Major, D minor, E minor, F major, G major, A minor, B diminished.
  • Group Lessons: Teams compete to correctly arrange chord cards for different keys, or they can race to arrange the chords of the same key (a separate copy of the chord cards will be required for each team).
  • *For optimal learning, incorporate one or more of these ideas.
9 Multi-Sensory Chord Games and Activities for Piano Lessons (6)

6. Roman Numeral Challenge: Matching the Chords of a Key to Roman Numerals

Objective: After students find chords of a given key in Game #5 above, students match the chords to the correct Roman numerals: I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii°.

Materials:

  • Complete set of chord cards
  • Complete set of Roman numeral cards

Instructions:

  • Choose a key to work in. The key of C major is a great place to start.
  • Private Lessons: After students have found the chords of a key in Game #5 above, students match the Roman numeral cards to their chords of the key (of C Major, etc.) and arrange the Roman numeral cards in order for that key: I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii°.
  • Group Lessons: Teams compete to correctly arrange Roman numerals for different keys.
  • *For optimal learning, incorporate one or more of these ideas.
9 Multi-Sensory Chord Games and Activities for Piano Lessons (7)

Kinesthetic Chord Games: Feeling The Shapes of the Chords

7. Chord Builder: Building a Chord from the Foundation to the top

Objective: Students identify the chord on the card and build it on the piano, starting with the root of the chord.

Materials:

Instructions:

  • Shuffle the chord cards and place them face down in a pile.
  • The student or students sit or stand at the piano.
  • Private Lessons: Student draws a card, identifies the chord and quality by reading each note of the chord from bottom to top, and builds the chord on the piano, focusing on hand shape. The student then names the chord and plays the chord on the piano.
  • Group Lessons: Use multiple pianos or have students play in different octaves. Students take turns drawing cards and building their chords. Optional: Students each draw a card, then build their chords simultaneously, playing their chords for each other after they successfully build them.
  • *For optimal learning, incorporate one or more of these ideas.
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8. Progression Performance: Create, Name, and Perform a Unique Chord Progression

Objective: Students use the chord cards to create a unique chord progression, give it a unique name, and perform it.

Materials:

Instructions:

  • Give the chord cards to the student.
  • Have staff paper and pencils ready for notation.
  • Private Lessons: Student creates a chord progression using the chord cards. The student notates the chord progression, performs the chord progression, and gives it a name.
  • Group Lessons: Each student adds one chord to create a group chord progression.
  • Optional: Students use the chord progression to compose their own unique piece.
  • *For optimal learning, incorporate one or more of these ideas.
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9. Writing A sound Story: Assigning Chord Qualities to Characters and Emotions

Objective: Students will create a musical story using different chord qualities to represent characters or emotions.

Materials:

  • Complete set of chord cards
  • Piano

Instructions:

  • Sort chord cards into quality groups: Major, minor, diminished, augmented.
  • Private Lessons: Student chooses a variety of chords and qualities and assigns an emotion or character to each chord. The student then creates a musical story using different the chord qualities to represent characters or emotions.
  • Group Lessons: Collaborative storytelling where the students brainstorm their story, and each student contributes a chord (character or emotion) to the story.
  • *For optimal learning, incorporate one or more of these ideas.
9 Multi-Sensory Chord Games and Activities for Piano Lessons (10)

These chord games and activities make learning chord qualities easy and fun! They’re perfect for private and group lessons, and students love the engaging multi-sensory approach to learning.

How do you help students learn chord qualities your studio? Do you use flash cards? Do you play chord games? Share your favorite game variations in the comments below!

Goh, Y. L., bin Abdullah, M. H., & Tan, W. H. (2017). Developing a Learning-by-Ear Five-Step Process as part of Game-Based Multisensory Learning Approaches in Group Piano Teaching in Higher Education. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 7(11), 2222-6990.

Zimmerman, E., & Lahav, A. (2012). The multisensory brain and its ability to learn music. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1252(1), 179-184.

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Melody Payne

Dr. Melody Payne is a pianist, teacher, and educational resource author who believes that all piano students deserve the best musical experiences possible, in every single lesson. Melody self-publishes pedagogical materials for piano students as well as piano teaching articles for piano teachers. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Music with emphases in music education and piano pedagogy and a Master of Music in Piano Pedagogy from Louisiana State University, and a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from William Carey University in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. She is a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music through the Music Teachers National Association. Melody and her husband Greg live in Marion, Virginia, a small town nestled in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, where she teaches children and teens both in person and online.

9 Multi-Sensory Chord Games and Activities for Piano Lessons (12)

Melody Payne

Dr. Melody Payne is a pianist, teacher, and educational resource author who believes that all piano students deserve the best musical experiences possible, in every single lesson. Melody self-publishes pedagogical materials for piano students as well as piano teaching articles for piano teachers. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Music with emphases in music education and piano pedagogy and a Master of Music in Piano Pedagogy from Louisiana State University, and a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from William Carey University in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. She is a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music through the Music Teachers National Association. Melody and her husband Greg live in Marion, Virginia, a small town nestled in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, where she teaches children and teens both in person and online.

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Hi! I’m Melody Payne, a pianist and piano teacher, educational resource author, a fun-loving wife to the most wonderful and talented hubby I could ask for, and a lifelong learner who loves to share. I want to make your life as a music teacher easier by writing and sharing helpful and relevant music teaching articles, and by creating educational resources with your very own students in mind. If you are a parent who wants to enroll your child in piano lessons, I’d love for us to get started building those skills that can give your child a lifetime of musical enjoyment!

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