Harmonies

Harmonies hands you a grid of 16 music-related words and phrases, song titles, artist names, and music terms, and asks you to sort them into four groups of four that share a hidden theme. It borrows its core mechanic from NYT Connections, but every category, and every trap, is built around music knowledge instead of general vocabulary. You get four mistakes before the puzzle beats you.

What is Harmonies?

Harmonies is a daily puzzle from Flatwhite Studios, the same team behind the artist-guessing game Spotle and the music crossword Crosstune. The board holds 16 tiles drawn from the world of music. A typical day mixes song titles like Umbrella or Desperado, artist names like Twice or SEVENTEEN, and plain music terms like Sharp, Flat, and Rest. Four of them always belong together under a theme that isn't stated up front, and your job is to find the connection before you run out of chances.

The core loop matches the Connections format almost exactly. You tap four tiles you think share a theme and submit the guess. Get it right and the category locks in place with its theme revealed, color-coded by difficulty, with green marking the easiest group. Get it wrong and you lose one of your four allowed mistakes. Miss too often and the puzzle ends before every category is solved. The overlap between categories is the whole game, since a single word can plausibly be a song title, an artist name, or an ordinary music term, and the puzzle counts on you guessing based on the surface connection rather than the real one.

The thing that separates Harmonies from other Connections clones is that it never strays from music. Where a lot of daily word games pull from general trivia, Harmonies stays focused on song titles, artist names, and music terminology, so the puzzle rewards people who actually follow music rather than general pop culture. Flatwhite Studios runs it alongside Spotle and Crosstune, so if the format clicks with you there are two other music-themed daily puzzles from the same maker to try.

Past boards live on an archives page laid out as a monthly calendar, so if you miss a day, or want to warm up on an older puzzle, you can go back and play it. There is also a create-a-board page for building your own custom puzzle, which is a step beyond what most Connections-style games offer. The board itself has shuffle, submit, and clear controls, and the site links out to a feedback form and the studio's Twitter account.

How to play Harmonies

1. Open Harmonies at harmonies.io.
2. Look over the 16 tiles for four that seem to share a music theme, such as a set of song titles, a group of artists, or a family of music terms.
3. Tap the four tiles you think belong together, then press Submit.
4. A correct guess locks in that category and reveals its theme, color-coded by difficulty from green (easiest) up.
5. A wrong guess costs you one of your four mistakes, so guess carefully rather than by process of elimination.
6. Keep solving categories until you've cleared the board or run out of mistakes, then check the archives page if you want to play an earlier puzzle.

Tips and strategy

• Start with the group you're most confident about rather than the first pattern you notice, since a shaky first guess burns a mistake you can't get back.
• Watch for tiles that could belong to more than one category. Harmonies leans on that overlap the same way Connections does, so the obvious grouping is often the trap.
• If a tile could be a song title, an artist name, and an ordinary music word all at once, hold off on it until the other three tiles in its likely group are clearer.
• Use the Shuffle button when you're stuck. Rearranging the tiles often breaks a false pattern your eye has latched onto.
• Try the create-a-board page and write a puzzle of your own. Building overlapping categories yourself is good practice for spotting how the daily ones are constructed.
• If you get stuck on today's puzzle, the archives page has past boards you can use to get a feel for how the site's categories tend to be built.

Good to know

Category

Music trivia, Connections-style grouping

Resets

New puzzle daily

Cost

Free to play

Guesses

4 mistakes allowed

Modes

Daily puzzle, plus a create-a-board custom mode

Archive

Yes, past puzzles shown in a monthly calendar at /archives

Creator

Flatwhite Studios (also makes Spotle and Crosstune)

Platform

Web browser

Harmonies FAQ

Is Harmonies free to play?

Yes. The puzzle loads and plays in the browser with no paywall or payment prompt.

How do you play Harmonies?

You're given 16 music-related tiles and have to sort them into four groups of four that share a hidden theme. Guess four tiles at a time; a correct guess locks in that category, a wrong one costs you a mistake, and you only get four mistakes total.

When does Harmonies reset, and is there an archive?

A new puzzle appears daily. There's also an archives page with past puzzles laid out in a monthly calendar, so you can go back and play ones you missed.

Is Harmonies like Wordle?

Not directly. It's closer to NYT Connections, the group-of-four puzzle, but every category is built around music, song titles, artist names, and music terms, instead of general vocabulary.

Who made Harmonies?

Flatwhite Studios, which also runs the music games Spotle and Crosstune.