Play Piano Chords Tutor from Amstrad Computer User in your browser

Piano Chords Tutor was a type-in listing I wrote that was published in Amstrad Computer User (ACU) January 1992. Try the program in the built-in emulator below, and scroll down for the original listing. Click on the emulator to activate your computer keyboard with it.

About the Piano Chords Tutor type-in from ACU

This program appeared in the 10-Liners section of Amstrad Computer User, which inspired my 10-block Scratch demos more recently.

When I wrote Chords Tutor, I was learning to play keyboards and thought it would be useful to have a simple program that tested me on my chords. It's like a flashcard program: it shows you the chord name, and then, after a short pause, shows you the keys in that chord. You can play it by actually putting your fingers on the keys of your piano or keyboard, or you can use it for mental practice.

The keyboard shown only has one octave in it, so some of the chords are inverted. A better approach might have been to show two octaves to ensure that each chord could start on its root note, but that would have required a more complex program that might not have fit into the 10-line limit.

There are just enough inks in Amstrad BASIC to be able to light up each key in the octave separately using colour swapping. I could have hidden the keyboard while it is drawn, but thought it would be more interesting for Amstrad users to see I was using colour swapping for this.

This version of the program has been extended with instructions at the start. This program is among the games and utilities on the Sean McManus Amstrad CPC Software Collection, which you can download for free to use with your favourite emulator.

You can hear my synth music, including my album Artificial, here.

The Piano Chords Tutor listing from ACU

Load another game into the emulator

• Play The Further Adventures of Fred
• Play BAS Invaders (an Amstrad Addict type-in)
• Play Alien Intervention (an Amstrad Action type-in)
• Play Gribbet (an Amstrad Action type-in)
• Play Wallbuster (an Amstrad Computer User type-in)
• Watch Fishtank (an Amstrad Computer User type-in)
• Play Misfit (from my book The Basic Idea)
• Play Paclone (an Amstrad Computer User type-in)
• Play Chords Tutor (an Amstrad Computer User type-in)
• Play 3D Mapper (an Amstrad Computer User type-in)
• Use the User Defined Graphics generator
• Reset the machine and program something yourself
• How to embed the Amstrad CPC 464 / CPC 6128 emulator in your website

You can download my Amstrad CPC games and utilities disc to use these programs in your favourite emulator.

Where next?

• Sean's Amstrad CPC homepage, including Amstrad type-ins and my Amstrad BASIC programming tutorial.
• Download my disc of Amstrad games and utilities
• Read my books to learn to program in Python or Scratch