Practising a piece

Slow a piece down, hear how it should go, practise one hand, and drill the bars that keep tripping you up. Everything in this chapter is free, on every piece you can open.

Start by playing

You don’t need to press Play. With a keyboard connected or the on-screen piano open, play the first note and you’re off: that note counts as the first one of the run, and warming up on other notes starts nothing. With the metronome on, any key starts the count-in instead.

With the microphone, press Play. If you’d rather always press it, turn off Start by playing in Settings (the cog on the controls). If you pause straight after a note started a run you didn’t mean to, SightReader offers to turn it off for you.

The controls under the score

The bar of controls under the score holds what you reach for mid-practice: restart, listen, play and pause, the tempo, the bars to practise, repeat, settings and the on-screen piano. On a computer, hover over a button to see its name. On a computer or tablet you can drag the controls by the dots beside them to any edge of the screen, and they stay where you put them.

Tempo and the metronome

The tempo button shows a small metronome and the speed in beats per minute.

• Drag it up or down to change the speed. The dock names the Italian marking as you go, from Largo to Presto.
• Tap it to open Tempo: step the speed up or down, tap a marking to jump to its usual speed, or turn on the Metronome.
• Back to the piece’s own speed: double-tap the number in that panel.

The metronome does more than click. Turning it on switches to Pitch & Rhythm, where the music moves on with the beat and your timing is marked too. How you’re marked explains the difference.

Count-in

With the metronome on, you are counted in before the music starts: at least four clicks, in whole bars, with the beat number on screen. Turn off Longer count-in in the settings for a single bar, or set Count-in bars under More options to count in for up to four bars.

Listen first

Press the listen button (Listen to this piece) to hear the piece played with its dynamics and articulation, while a line follows the music so you can read along. If you are practising one hand, Listen plays just that hand; if you have chosen some bars, it plays those.

One hand at a time

Above the score, beside the mode tag, is the hands control: L, LR and R (Left hand only, Both hands, Right hand only). On a narrow phone it is one button that cycles through them. Pick a hand and only that hand is marked; the other stays on the page, greyed out, so you keep reading the whole texture.

One hand counts as practice. You still see your accuracy and timing, but stars, completing the piece, ticking off homework and passing a level wait until you play it hands together. In the library, the hand you choose carries on to the next piece until you switch back or close the app.

Practise some bars

Find the bars that go wrong, and play just those.

1. Press and hold a bar on the score.
2. Tap the last bar you want, or drag along the score. Drag the handles on the barlines, or use the arrows, to adjust either end.
3. Tap Done.

Only those bars are played and marked; the rest of the music is dimmed. The count-in leads straight into your first bar, and Listen plays just those bars.

Other ways in:

• The bars button on the controls (Practise some bars), or Choose bars just above them.
• After a run that went wrong in one place, your results offer the bars to work on, such as Practise bars 9-12.
• In Review mistakes, Practise this bar.

Your bars stay chosen for that piece until you close the app. To go back to everything, tap the × beside the bars above the controls, or Play the whole piece on your results.

Practising some bars counts towards your streak, but earns no stars or XP: play the whole piece for those.

Repeat

On library pieces and studies, the repeat button goes round again for you, at whatever tempo you set:

• Tap once for Repeat: until you stop: the piece starts again after each run.
• Tap twice for Repeat: until 3 stars: it stops on the first run at 90% or more, and opens your results.
• Tap again to turn it off.

A short line above the controls says what each tap does. With some bars chosen, Repeat goes round those bars, and the button sits beside Done while you choose them. In Pitch Only, each lap waits for your first note. A new badge or a level-up stops the loop, so you never miss it. On the narrowest phones, find it as Loop the piece in the settings instead.

Seeing the score

• On a computer, Full-screen score clears everything else away. On a phone the score always fills the screen.
• The button beside it lays the whole piece out on one line that glides along as you play. Turning a phone sideways does this by itself.
• Pinch to zoom, or hold Ctrl (⌘ on a Mac) and scroll. Double-tap to go back to the usual size.
• The score turns a screenful at a time, only when the next line wouldn’t fit. To keep the line you are playing in the same place instead, set Scrolling style to Follow the line in Preferences.