Speed Progression Planner
Draft a realistic BPM staircase, work one rung with a scheduled click, and stamp what your hands actually delivered. Clean streaks climb; shaky takes trigger a deliberate recovery rung.
Tempo staircase
Take tape
Mouse / touch: define material, start, goal, rise, streak rule, fallback, attempt length, and quarter- or eighth-note click grid; draft the climb; then tap a rung. Tap the attempt control again to stop its scheduled click cleanly. Stamp “clean” only for accurate, relaxed repetitions; “shaky” moves to the nearest safe rung below.
Keyboard: Tab reaches every control. On the staircase use ←/→/↑/↓ and Enter. Press T for a four-bar attempt, L to toggle the loop, C to seal clean, S to mark shaky, and B to bank a break when focus is not in a form field.
Timing: clicks are scheduled against the audio clock; beat one is accented. The take tape is a session record, not a grade. Tip: use small rises for fine motor work and stop the climb at the first sign of tension.
With the Speed Progression Planner, you’ll be able to create a tempo staircase to practice from that includes a built-in click track so you can work at your own pace. Draft a plan, take timed attempts, and stamp your results to see your progression over time.
All of the controls are interactive with either a touch screen or mouse. For a quicker workflow including jumping between rungs and stamping your takes, you can use a computer keyboard as well.
How to Use the Tool
From the top, you have your planning deck. You can choose what you’re going to work on (scales, arpeggios, etc.) and set the initial tempo in beats per minute and the desired end-tempo. You also decide the number of beats gained each time you get a clean take and how many clean takes in a row you need before you get the next beat up. You can set how many BPM you lose when you mark a take as ‘shaky’, how long the attempt should be (one, two, four, eight bars), and whether you want to count clicks in eighth notes or quarter notes.
Then, hit “Draft this climb.” It will create the tempo stairway for you using those settings. There’s also the option to return to default preset to go back to a more normal 72-108 BPM plan lickity split.
Next, look at workzone, where the BPM readout and big dial display the active working tempo. To begin a pre-scheduled click, hit the “Run a four-bar attempt” button and it will click at the preset duration. Clicking this button again stops the click. If you prefer a continuous click, try the “Loop the working rung” button which creates a continuous click that adapts if you change rungs. Change volume of the click using the slider so it’s audible enough without being distracting from speakers or headphones. A visual pulse helps keep the time while playing; the beat rail does just that.
Once an attempt has been completed, review it. That’s the core of the progression system. If you played accurately, with clear notes and relaxed motion, click “Seal a clean take.” The widget will move you automatically to next level if you have met the clean streak requirement. If you struggled with tension or timing, click “Mark a shaky take,” which resets your clean streak and drops you down to a safer tempo based off the fallback setting. Click “Bank a tension break” to reset the streak but not drop down a rung so that you can take a short rest to reset your focus.
The practice flows more smoothly with keyboard shortcuts. Just tab between controls to jump around. Use your arrow keys to move across the staircase when one of its rungs is selected. Hit T to begin (or pause) a scheduled attempt. Hit L to switch on/off loop mode. Hit C to close off a clean take. Hit S to flag a shaky take. Hit B to bank a tension break. As you type into one of the input fields those shortcuts will be disabled.
Clicking on the help panel button displays a reference section that lists the controls and timing tips. There’s also “Fullscreen” option for expanding the widget and wiping away the distraction of the browser frame.
Session information is recorded in the log book section. Take tape reveals a history of your most recent stamps, color coded according to whether the results are shaky or clean. These are clean results. The summary section indicates the estimated number of clean takes required for completion. It also shows best clean BPM achieved and the number of rungs remaining before reaching the goal. This allows you to see the rate of progress and make adjustments to the rise/fall value accordingly for upcoming sessions.
For example, smaller rises can help with fine motor work; larger rises will speed up the process for easier material. If you feel tense during a climb, stop immediately before falling into any bad habits. Begin with a climb just hard enough to be doable but not easy. Apply some streak and rise rules to encourage consistent effort without racing. Find a comfortable starting pace and do several runs through it as a baseline. Build confidence in your progress by staying on track. Let the widget schedule things and do the math. You concentrate on the climbing technique.
For focused drills, use the scheduled attempts, while the loop provides a warm-up. Tweak the parameters if going too fast or slow. Structured feedback is good for your hands. Hit the draft. Set the parameters. Let the session begin.