Resource for interactive whiteboard
Open the chime in full screen and use it directly from the whiteboard
Open the chime βOpens in full screen Β· No installation Β· Works in any browser
The wall chime is a common music classroom resource: it represents a chime, hung vertically, with its series of colored bars representing the notes of the scale. It's hung on the classroom wall with the notes that have been presented to the students so far. Any moment of the lesson, or the start of it, is a good time for the teacher or a student to lead singing exercises by pointing at the bars. The exercises and games it allows are very numerous.
This digital version reproduces the same concept adapted to the interactive whiteboard or projector: pressing each bar plays the note with real bar-chime sound, and at the same time the note appears on the staff on the right of the screen.
The eight bars (Do–Re–Mi–Fa–Sol–La–Si–Do') are arranged vertically from high to low, top to bottom, with optional KodΓ‘ly colors. Each bar's size is proportional: low notes take up more width than high ones, just like on the physical chime.
The top bar offers several controls to adapt the resource to each moment of the lesson:
Turns the colors on the bars on or off. With colors OFF the bars are shown in neutral gray, useful when you want students to read the note without the help of color.
Shows or hides the note's name on each bar. With names off you can ask students to identify the note only by its position on the staff or by its sound.
Colors the note on the staff with that note's color. Useful for reinforcing the color-note association in the early stages of learning.
The small button to the left of each bar turns that note on or off. Lets you focus on the range of notes being worked on at that moment, on intervals of particular difficulty, the range of the song about to be learned, etc.
Reactivates all notes at once. Lets you reset the whole chime after turning off some bars.
Switches between Latin note names (Do–Re–Mi) and Anglo-Saxon letter names (C–D–E). Handy for working with students who use either system.
It's also possible to play from the staff: clicking on a line or space of the staff plays the corresponding note and shows it there. Ideal for going from the staff to sound without going through the bars.
These activities work in a group, with the resource projected on the interactive whiteboard. The teacher β or a student β operates the chime from the whiteboard or from a connected tablet/computer.
The teacher or a student plays a bar, an interval or a melodic sequence, and the whole class sings the proposed model. Hand signs (KodΓ‘ly hand signs) can be added: Sol = open hand at chest height, Mi = hand tilted downward, La = hand parallel to the floor higher than Solβ¦
Variant: sing with solfège syllables, with the note name, or with the hand sign without saying the name.
Turn on the Names OFF switch (and optionally Colors OFF). The teacher plays a bar β the class sees the note on the staff but not its name β and students must identify which note it is. They can answer out loud, with hand signs, or in writing on individual whiteboards.
Staff variant: the teacher plays from the staff (clicking the line/space), not from the bars. Students see the note and must say its name.
The teacher plays a phrase of 3 or 4 notes. Students listen, memorize it and reproduce it from memory: singing, with hand signs, or writing it in their notebooks or on the classroom board. It's then checked by playing it again on the chime.
Turn off every bar except Sol and Mi (or La-Sol-Mi depending on the method). Once students master those notes, turn La back on. Then Fa, Do, Re⦠The chime shows only the notes the group already knows, avoiding confusion with unstudied notes.
Direct connection with the KodΓ‘ly method: the sequence Sol-Mi-La-Do-Re is the classic progression for introducing notes.
An activity that works on inner hearing. The teacher points out on the chime the melody of a song known to the students with the sound turned off, and the class must recognize the song before it ends. The more notes are played, the easier it is to guess.
A student comes up to the whiteboard and plays a free melody or a prepared phrase. The rest of the class sings in real time what they hear. It's a sight-reading activity in reverse: instead of reading the staff, you read your classmate's sound gesture.
Variant: the student plays and the others write down what they hear without looking at the whiteboard.
The teacher plays a short phrase (2-4 notes), and students repeat it by singing immediately after β without playing, only with their voice. It's a classic imitation activity that works on short-term auditory memory and pitch accuracy.
Progression: start with very contrasting 2-note phrases (Sol-Mi), gradually increasing length and interval difficulty.
Inner hearing β imagining and mentally listening to a note or phrase without producing sound β is one of the most powerful exercises in KodΓ‘ly pedagogy for developing the inner ear. The chime's Sound switch lets you turn off the audio completely while the staff and the bars keep responding visually. This opens up specific variants of the activities above:
With sound off, the teacher plays a bar without it sounding. The class sings out loud the note they expected to hear, based only on the bar's position or the staff. The sound is then turned on to confirm whether they were right.
Advanced variant: the teacher alternates bar by bar between sound on and sound off. The silent notes are sung inwardly; on cue, the whole class sings them out loud at once.
The teacher plays a phrase with sound on. Students repeat it in inner hearing (without vocalizing). The teacher then plays the same phrase with sound off and students sing it out loud.
Alternation: one phrase with vocal echo, the next with inner echo. Keeps the group active and focused.
The teacher plays the first notes of a phrase with sound on and finishes the phrase with sound off. Students mentally complete what's missing and write it down or sing it. Works on melodic anticipation and tonal memory.
Especially useful in the early years for introducing notes following any music-initiation method: KodΓ‘ly, Ward, the song method or others. It can also be used in the early years of secondary school or with music-initiation groups of any age.
It requires no prior knowledge from students. The resource is as simple or as complex as the teacher makes it.
ZoltΓ‘n KodΓ‘ly built his method around a fundamental principle: sound before reading. The child first sings, internalizes and recognizes; only later reads and writes. The chime fits into that sequence because it lets you work on pitch and musical memory before introducing notation: the staff can be hidden at first and activated progressively as the group is ready.
The choice of Sol-Mi as the first interval is not arbitrary: it's a descending minor third, the interval children produce spontaneously when calling out to a friend or singing freely. That's why it's the universal starting point of this pedagogy β and the first pair of bars it makes sense to begin with.
Hand signs (hand gestures representing each note) integrate naturally with the chime: while one hand plays the bar, the other can make the gesture, connecting the sound, the name and the body image of the note in the same moment.
Ready to use in class
Open the chime βThis page is being translated into English. You'll find games not translated yet, marked with a label warning about it. If you'd still like to continue on the old page, it's available from the language selector, top right.
