4chord MIDI Plays All the Hits!

For better or worse, most pop songs use a very simple set of notes called a chord progression. While this may frustrate those that have a good grasp of musical theory, it makes learning to play along with many of these songs relatively easy.

Sven Gregori, who has an above-average grasp on musical theory, decided to make a project to mock the simplicity of mainstream music. This, however, took on a life of its own, and after quite a bit of work, he’s produced an ATmega328P-based MIDI input device that can perform a wide variety of songs with only four buttons — there’s another three to navigate the user interface — and a Nokia 5110 LCD display.

While perhaps a bit silly to serious musicians, the pocket-sized gadget could be quite entertaining for the rest of us. Check out Gregori’s explanation in the video above as well as his GitHub page here.