Rhythm Words: Music Lessons

The whole seven-grove course is free. Say the word, clap or tap its rhythm — every tap is measured honestly, with no stars for nothing. Built on the Kodaly method.

Rhythm Words turns words your child already knows into music.

Say "AP-ple" — that's two sounds. Say "WA-ter-mel-on" — that's four. In Rhythm Words the picture is cut into as many pieces as the word has syllables, so a child can SEE the rhythm before tapping it. Say the word out loud, tap it back, and Pippo the chick hops along the branches.

It is built on the Kodaly method — the way music teachers have taught rhythm to small children for decades.

THE WHOLE COURSE IS FREE All seven groves, every rhythm from quarter notes to sixteenths, the free-play mode and the grown-up report come with the free Fruits pack. No ads. No subscriptions. No tracking.

TWO WAYS TO PLAY — THE CHILD PICKS

• Clap & stomp: nothing is scored at all. Pippo hops the whole bar himself and the child claps and stomps along with him. This is how a music lesson actually starts.
• Tap along: every tap is measured to the millisecond, and the report afterwards is honest. The mode is chosen at the start of every session, so the same grove suits a child still finding the beat and a child chasing precision.

HOW A SESSION GOES

• Listen: Pippo plays a bar
• Say the word out loud — this is the part that actually teaches
• Tap it back: every tap is measured to the millisecond
• Five clearings and the session ends by itself
• The next grove opens when most taps land in time

THE SEVEN GROVES, IN ORDER

1. Pear Meadow — the steady beat, and the silence of a rest
2. Apple Hill — two even halves of a beat (AP-ple)
3. Watermelon River — four sounds inside one beat (WA-ter-mel-on)
4. Strawberry Peak — long, then two short (STRAW-ber-ry)
5. Tangerine Grove — two short, then long (tan-ge-RINE)
6. Banana Hill — short, long, short, the accent in the middle (ba-NA-na)
7. Rainbow Meadow — everything learned, mixed together The map shows all seven at once, so a child can see the path already walked and what comes next.

FOR GROWN-UPS Behind a parental gate there is an honest timing report: is your child a little early, a little late, or right on — measured against what is normal at ages 6 to 8. We show the median, not the best result. No flattery, no stars for nothing.

FOR TEACHERS One iPad can go round a group: there are no accounts and no profiles to switch between. The tempo is a steady 70, the clap-along mode needs no hands on the screen at all, and nothing needs the internet. The order of the rhythms follows the order a Kodaly or Orff lesson follows, so the app can sit inside a lesson instead of replacing it.

MADE FOR SMALL HANDS

• iPhone and iPad, landscape, one big tap zone — nothing to miss
• "My Rhythm": build your own bar and Pippo performs it
• No internet, no accounts, no analytics, no data collection of any kind

OPTIONAL Three more worlds — Animals, Toys and Transport — are available as one optional one-time purchase, and only behind the parental gate. Same rhythms, new words and pictures. The method itself stays free.

Questions or feedback: support@rhythmwords.app