How to play
A ball drops into a ring. Every time it touches the ring it plays the next note of a well-known melody. Four song titles appear under the ring, and you have 12 seconds to tap the right one before the ring closes.
- A correct answer is worth 100 points plus 25 for every second left on the clock.
- Answers in a row build a streak. Your points are multiplied by the streak, up to ×5.
- A wrong answer, or letting the ring close, costs one of your three lives.
- The game ends when you run out of lives. Your best score stays saved on this device.
Tips for naming a song from single notes
The notes are the real melody, but the rhythm is not: the ball decides when the next note sounds. So don't wait for the beat. Listen to the shape instead. Is the tune climbing step by step, jumping, or repeating the same note? Beethoven's Ode to Joy starts with the same note twice and then walks up; Für Elise rocks back and forth between two neighbouring notes before it falls.
In our videos, most people who name the song do it once a few more notes have played rather than on the very first ones, which is why the ring gives you time. Guessing early scores more, but a wrong guess costs a life.
What the ball is doing
The ball falls with constant gravity and bounces off the inside of the ring like light off a mirror: the angle it comes in at is the angle it leaves at. We keep a minimum speed, so the ball never ends up lying still at the bottom and the melody never stops.
While you think, the ring shrinks to a little over half its size. A smaller ring means shorter trips between walls, so the bounces come faster and the melody speeds up just as the time runs out. That squeeze is the same trick our shrinking-ring video uses to build tension.
The music
Your browser plays each note with a tiny synthesizer: a soft triangle wave with a quiet octave on top, so every note starts with a clear click you can hear on a phone speaker. There are no audio files and no recordings. Every melody in the game is in the public domain; after each answer the game shows the composer and the year, and the full list is on the music and copyright page.