6 FREE Music Game Sites for Children
Music games for kids are an effective way to expose them to music and music knowledge. The benefit? A child can have fun while learning about sounds, beats, rhythm, and composition. Even general music knowledge like information about composers can be learned while playing fun games. Music games for kids are very useful for increasing creativity. While some do rely on memorizing and listening, others rely on more complex structures, like music composition through a scale. These games range in difficulty from really simple to complex so the child can choose something that is completely comfortable.
The following sites are ones I personally have reviewed and given my own opinion on.
MusicLab - Chrome Music Lab is a website that makes learning music more accessible through fun, hands-on experiments. With this program, kids can explore music and its connections to science, math, art, and more. Some of the games include creating percussion and rhythmic beats, exploring major and minor sounds on the piano, listening to different instruments and sounds using a spectogram, producing sound waves, exploring harmonic sounds, making up melodies and more. You can play with these experiments across devices – phones, tablets, laptops – just by opening the site on a web browser such as Chrome. It’s totally FREE and you don’t even have to open an account! Suitable for ages 7-10.
Rating: 4/5
https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Experiments
PBS Kids - While PBS kids is a full educational entertainment website for kids, the part I want to highlight is the music section. Using some of our kids’ favorite TV shows, PBS has taken Sesame Street, Pinkalicious, Pete The Cat, Daniel Tiger, Curious George and the like to create fun, music based activities for kids. Activities that are popular are creating a band with your favorite characters, singing songs to help regulate emotions, creating an orchestra with instruments from around the world. Some activities even include basic counting skills and creating art through these activities. This website is suitable for ages 4-7.
BONUS: It can also be used in Spanish!
Rating: 3/5
https://pbskids.org/games/music
Classic For Kids - Classic For Kids Games are good options for children interested in music but without much knowledge. With the different games available, the child can learn musical terms, match rhythms, learn about composers, note names, musical instruments, and even compose a very simple 4-bar melody. A unique feature is that the composer area of this website even has full lesson plans for those parents that want to dive deeper into a composer’s life. While these lessons will take some prep from parents (ideally who have musical experience - think learning outcomes, national music objectives etc!) it is a free tool that is available to anyone who has the time. The games area is suitable for ages 5 - 12 while the lesson plans are geared more towards 3rd to 5th grade.
Rating: 5/5
https://www.classicsforkids.com/music-games/
Music Memory Game - In Music Memory game, your task is to listen to the notes (in solfege) played by the computer and replay them in the same sequence. You will be given 7 color buttons, namely do, re, mi, fa, so, la and ti from left to right. Ideally, the game is intended for those with some musical experience. It is a great way to keep those ears sharp but in my opinion, it increases in difficulty too quickly. It’s a great sight singing tool but I wish it had different levels of ability. Game is best suited for ages 8-16.
Rating: 3/5
https://www.proprofsgames.com/music-memory/
Inside The Orchestra - This impressive website is easy to navigate and includes a wide range of activities for children. They learn about musical concepts with these games that range from simple (highs and lows) to more complicated (musical maps), introduces dynamics, instrument identification, instrument families, matching, puzzles, and spelling games. It even includes popular games like mad libs, bingo, freeze games and memory games to ignite kids’ passion for music. Best suited for children ages 3-8 years old.
BONUS: Available in English, Spanish and French
Rating: 5/5
https://insidetheorchestra.org/virtual-school-programs-hub/online-musical-games-language/
Ducksters Musical Matching Game - The Ducksters Music Matching Game is engaging for kids that know how to play an instrument. The premise of the game is to match tones and pitches. You can choose the game difficulty ranging from really simple (just 3 notes to match) to very complex (8 notes to match). You can play just as practice or time yourself to constantly challenge you to mix the musical notes faster. The down side to this game is that it still seems to be in an old school format compared to others. Regardless, it still is a fantastic ear training tool for older kids who have some musical experience. Ducksters also has other educational programs for history and science you may want to check out. Suitable for ages 8-16 years old.
Rating: 3/5