SOUND SHAPES · MAGNETIC MUSIC NOTATION
Sound Shapes are magnetic music notation manipulatives for music educators. Build the exercise your student needs and change it in seconds until your students achieve mastery.
Teacher designed and produced · Fits any staff with 1” spaces · POs and Custom Orders accepted
“I’ve been teaching over 40 years and these are by far my favorite manipulatives.”
“The best investment I have ever made in my teaching career!”
HOW IT WORKS
Build. Create a rhythm, reading, interval, or chord exercise right on the staff. Start with exactly what your student needs.
Change. Move a note, change a rhythm, or rearrange the entire exercise in seconds. Keep practicing the concept in new ways until it clicks.
Play. Take the exercise to the instrument and put it into practice. Then return to the board to build on what they've learned.
ONE SYSTEM, MANY CONCEPTS
Introduce the staff in an intuitive, approachable way, then build and reinforce reading skills until they become second nature.
Build endless rhythm-reading exercises, isolate tricky measures, and rearrange patterns for targeted practice right when students need it.
Practice recognizing the spacing and shapes of harmonic intervals at a glance.
Help students recognize the familiar shapes chords make on the staff, rather than seeing them as random clusters of notes.
Build signatures up to seven sharps or flats, apply accidentals in context.
Explore different time signatures and clefs, helping students understand how each changes the way music is read and played.
SHOP SOUND SHAPES
Whether you're just getting started or equipping your entire studio, there's a set for the way you teach.
STARTER SET
Everything you need to get started, including magnetic notes and an 18×24 staff board.
Notation Foundations is the essential magnetic note set for teaching students how to read and understand the staff. It offers a clear, hands-on way to build patterns, track direction, and understand how notation works. The included 18×24 Staff Board gives you a ready-to-use surface so you have everything you need to begin hands-on practice.
Use the set to introduce reading skills, run rhythm drills, create composition exercises, and replace traditional worksheets with interactive practice that keeps students engaged and learning. Designed for piano lessons, group classes, and music classrooms, it makes early theory intuitive, visual, and easy to teach.
ALREADY HAVE A BOARD?
The essential magnetic notation set for teachers with a compatible staff board.
Notation Foundations is the essential magnetic note set for teaching students how to read the staff, offering a clear, hands-on way to build patterns, track direction, and understand how notation works. Use it to introduce reading skills, run rhythm drills, create composition exercises, and replace traditional worksheets with interactive practice that keeps students engaged and learning faster. Designed for piano lessons, group classes, and music classrooms, this set makes early theory intuitive, visual, and easy to teach.
Fits any staff board with 1-inch spaced lines.
YOUR COMPLETE TEACHING TOOLKIT
The complete core Sound Shapes collection, including all note values and rests, intervals, chords, accidentals, time signatures, and the staff board. Everything you need in one set.
The Complete Studio System is the full Sound Shapes experience, designed for teachers who want a comprehensive, hands-on notation system ready from day one. This is not a starter kit. It’s the complete toolkit for teaching rhythm literacy, pitch fluency, intervals, chords, accidentals, and clefs in a way that is hands-on and immediately engaging for students of any age. Instead of piecing together sets over time, you get the entire system in one cohesive collection — built to support everything from foundational reading to advanced concept reinforcement.
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Please note that the staff board ships separately and arrives 2-3 business days later.
“I love how versatile and impactful Sound Shapes are in my studio. They reinforce reading and theory skills at any level while keeping lessons fresh and engaging.”
“It makes teaching so much easier and more interactive. Highly recommend for any music classroom or private studio!”
Build on your existing set with specialized pieces for advanced rhythm, intervals, chords, and more. Choose the concepts you teach most, and add to your collection as your needs grow.
The Intervals Set provides harmonic intervals from seconds through octaves, giving students a tactile way to compare spacing and reinforce intervallic reading. Two ledger lines are included so intervals can be shown exactly as they appear in real music.
Fits any staff board with 1-inch spaced lines.
The Sound Shapes Chords Set includes fixed triads, seventh chords, octave chords, and every inversion in both stem directions, giving students an immediate visual understanding of how chords are built and how they appear in different positions. By comparing shapes side by side, students develop faster harmonic recognition, stronger inversion fluency, and a clear sense of how chord structures repeat throughout real repertoire, making this set a powerful tool for analysis, reading, and applied theory.
Fits any staff board with 1-inch spaced lines.
Time Signatures completes the Sound Shapes system by bringing rhythm and meter fully into your hands-on instruction. Instead of students glancing past the time signature at the beginning of a piece, it becomes something they build, manipulate, and actively use on the staff. This 20-piece set allows you to build virtually any meter found in standard repertoire, with enough numbers to display two full time signatures at once.
Fits any staff board with 1-inch spaced lines.
Magnetic Pieces
3D-printed PLA with flush magnetic backing.
Board Compatibility
Designed for magnetic staff boards with
1-inch line spacing.
18 × 24 Inch Board
A spacious, double-sided magnetic staff board.
Dry-Erase Surface
Staff on one side, blank on the other. Both dry-erase.
Frequently asked questions
Sound Shapes can support early music learning through more advanced notation and theory work. Choose sets based on the concepts you want to teach.
No. The pieces work on magnetic surfaces and staff boards with one-inch spacing.
Yes. They can be used in private lessons, group classes, and music classrooms.
Sound Shapes are available for international orders through the Cadenza Studios website.
Yes. The pieces are 3D printed in PLA plastic with a flat magnetic backing, made for daily studio and classroom use. They should not be left out in extreme heat.
Sound Shapes sets arrive in about 7 business days. The Magnetic Staff Board takes about 9 business days.
Yes. Sound Shapes sets and the Staff Board can be returned or exchanged within 30 days of delivery. Contact us first and we'll send a return label. For exchanges, you pay $8 return shipping and we send the replacement at no additional cost. For refunds, $8 is deducted to cover return shipping. If your order arrives damaged or defective, we'll replace it at no cost.
SPECIAL ORDERS & SCHOOL PURCHASING
Whether you're ordering for a school, looking for a custom set, or have a question before purchasing, we're here to help.
School & Purchase Orders
Purchasing for a school or organization? Find information about submitting a purchase order.
I'm Luisa, a piano teacher and composer in Oklahoma City. I created Sound Shapes for my own students, and my husband brings the designs to life, handling the design and manufacturing process. Together, we make each set right here in Oklahoma City. Every piece is 3D printed, and I assemble and magnetize each set by hand, including striping every staff board.
Whatever the lesson calls for, build the exercise right when you need it.
A complete toolkit for rhythm fluency
The Rhythm Suite gives teachers a clear, hands-on way to model rhythmic values, subdivisions, and beamed groupings so students can understand rhythm structure quickly and accurately. With movable pieces for whole through sixteenth-note values, it’s designed for counting practice, subdivision work, rhythm dictation, drills, and interactive sequencing that replaces worksheets and makes rhythm easier to see, hear, and internalize. Perfect for piano lessons, group classes, and music classrooms, this set helps students build confident, fluent rhythm skills through physical learning.
Fits any staff board with 1-inch spaced lines.