Music Poker Playing Cards Chords and Scales

These cards are such fun, and they are an incredibly good way for students of all abilities to build an understanding of chords, scales, and clefs. The beauty of these cards – which are based on a standard deck of ordinary playing cards – is that the game can be played at any level.

If your younger students have a basic knowledge of treble and bass staff notation along with simple major and minor 3-note chords, then they can enjoy this game in full. If your older students have super-advanced knowledge up to and including alto and tenor staff notation along with augmented and Neapolitan 6th chords (and beyond!) then the game can be played at that level instead.

After inventing this game, I had my own set of these cards professionally printed and I bring them to dinner parties when I am surrounded by fellow music teachers – it is honestly the best thing any of us play together, which is why I advertise this game as being for both the classroom and the staffroom.

The aim of the game is simple: collect the note pitches that you want (or need) to create whichever chords and scales you want; when you have what you need, play your ‘hand’ and earn the number of points on the cards that you play. The game ends when you want it to, and could go on for hours, or just 15 minutes before the end of the lesson (or the start of parent evenings)! Please watch the video to gain further insight into this resource, which I cannot recommend enough to you.

The files are all PDF documents: a master card PDF from which you can print all the cards, correctly aligned front to back for convenience (laminate them for longevity); a full explanation of the rules of the game on a second PDF document; finally, a PDF scorecard, including space for up to 70 entries for 5 players for easy tracking of the scores.

I really hope that you will enjoy my resources and find them useful. I pride myself on the quality of the resources that I publish, and I welcome feedback and enquiries from all of my colleague-customers across the world. I can be contacted directly at rainynightmusic@hotmail.com and I would be delighted to hear from you. Thank you for considering this resource for your classroom.