This new MIDI controller might teach you music theory and help you to write better songs

We know that many of you are keen to improve your music theory skills, so what if there was a controller that helped you to understand the subject and create better music at the same time?

That’s the promise of the TheoryBoard, a ‘music theory MIDI controller’ from Irijule that’s billed as the “ultimate hack for production and composition”. It features an interface of coloured buttons, and enables you to select a scale and then play a wide range of chords within that scale, as well as melodies that will always fit over the top of them.

Irijule says that the TheoryBoard is a ‘synesthetic musical instrument’, offering a diatonic layout that’s expressed through colour. There’s colour correlation between the chord and melody sides of the controller, so you have visual reference points.

The TheoryBoard contains more than 860 scales and a wide range of chords, and the promise is that the colour coding will enable you to understand the relationship between melody and harmony. There’s a fuller explanation of how it works in the video above and on the TheoryBoard Kickstarter page, where you can pledge from $299 to get your hands on one next year.

Ben Rogerson

I’m the Deputy Editor of MusicRadar, having worked on the site since its launch in 2007. I previously spent eight years working on our sister magazine, Computer Music. I’ve been playing the piano, gigging in bands and failing to finish tracks at home for more than 30 years, 24 of which I’ve also spent writing about music and the ever-changing technology used to make it. 

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