Repertoire Scheduler

It generates a disciplined practice schedule tailored to how well you already know each piece. It works on either your computer keyboard (for speed) or via trackpad/mouse. It helps you find the right balance between fragile recall and urgent review, never again will you be unsure of what to practise next.

On the left is Repertoire shelf containing all of the music you’re working on. To open up a piece just click on the corresponding card, or step through each one using the arrow keys. The number keys (one, four) will take you straight to whichever piece you want to look at. Overdue material are marked in red. This helps you see what is overdue and which parts of a piece you are currently checking.

How to Use the Practice Planner

For example, the editor in the middle allow you to define your plan for the chosen piece. Here you can select what part of music you wish to focus on (eg opening theme, difficult middle phrase), and how many minutes you intend to dedicate to this section. Remember, short concentrated practice tend to be more productive.

Once you’ve gotten through your practice pass, rank how confident you feel you’ll be able to remember that material (one being shaky and you need to go back quickly; five meaning it’s got legs and can wait a couple weeks). That number becomes the scheduler’s engine. It pulls the weak back and pushes the strong out.

Enter your overall practice budget into the top box, then select how you want to prioritize your departure. Deadline is by earliest due date. Balanced is based off both confidence and urgency. Fragile Recall Rescue pushes the least reliable stuff up front. Then click on Build today’s runway for the sessions planned out as you’d like them.

After the runway is constructed, you can listen to the opening cue of any piece so that you know where to start in your head. You can use the volume slider to adjust the volume of the synthetic cues, which is helpful if you are sharing a room. After practicing a section, hit Log this section pass to mark it as complete and update its due date according to your confidence rating.

And on the bottom, there’s the calendar, which lets you see what’s coming up over the next two weeks. At a glance, you can see when each thing is going to come back into rotation.

The reset button restores your library to the beginning so that you can try out other approaches to scheduling from square one.

It is also important to try to honestly rate how much you think you can remember so that you have a clear idea of where you need to focus your time preparing. If you overestimate what you will remember then you won’t fill in all the blanks; if you underestimate you end up cramming when it doesn’t matter. Use this method for small chunks at a time. Don’t run through the whole piece all at once. You’ll keep your brain sharp and your practice sessions tight.

These controls is accessible from the help panel at any time. You can return to that to view them again, or click it away entirely if you prefer. There’s also a fullscreen button for maximizing space around your pieces and their schedule so you can concentrate better.

Set a reasonable budget and log your first pass to begin with. How does the system respond?