Playlists and practice steps
A playlist is a way through the song for practice: a list of steps, each a section or a few bars played a number of times at a speed. While a playlist is on, Play goes through its steps in order; turn it off and the song plays as written. A playlist never changes the song’s notes, and a song can have as many as you like.
The Playlist pane
Available on every platform.
Making a playlist
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From the Practice menu. Right-click in an Editor pane: its menu ends with Practice and what it’s about, the selected notes’ bars, else the loop (if you’re inside it), else the section, else the bar. Choose a recipe:
- Speed Steps: 60 → 100 %: three times at each 10 % step, the last until you move on. Speed Steps: 80 → 120 % goes past full speed. Not to be confused with the speed trainer, which raises the speed as you play cleanly.
- Chunks of One Bar or Two Bars: each chunk alone, then with those before it.
- Burst Around 100 %: a little under and over full speed, then at it.
- Loop It, or Loop It at 75 %.
- Learn It: Wait for Me, Then Listen: the part you clicked in is muted for you to play, first with Wait for Me, then with Listen at rising speeds.
The new playlist is on at once, and a Playlist pane opens to show it.
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In the Playlist pane. With no playlist yet, the pane offers New Playlist and Speed Steps over the loop, or the song. The pane bar’s chip picks a playlist, and has New Playlist, Rename Playlist… and Delete Playlist.
Practice… (⌃⌥⌘P)Practice… (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+P)Practice… (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+P (⌥⇧⌘P on a Mac)) opens a Playlist pane at its Practice band, where you choose how to practise; see Wait for Me.
The pane
At the top: the playlist’s name (click it to rename), how many steps and how long they take, a switch, and Repeat (shown as ↻ when the pane is narrow and the name needs the room). The switch reads “Playing Through It” while the playlist is on and “Off: Song as Written” when not; in a pane too narrow for those words beside the name, On and Off. With Repeat on, the playlist starts over after its last step; otherwise the song stops there.
Each step is a row: its number, its section or bars, how long a pass takes, and then:
- Times: ×1 to ×12, or ∞ (until you move on). Click it to go through 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12 and ∞.
- Speed: − and + by 5 %. Drag across it to set any speed, or click it for 100 %.
- The cross at the end deletes the step.
+ Add Step at the foot adds a section, The Loop, The Selected Notes’ Bars or The Whole Song. A step made from a section follows its marker if it moves. Drag a row to move it.
A step’s menu
Right-click a step for Times and Speed, Count In Before It or Count In Before Each Pass, Practice (Play, Wait for Me, Listen or Follow Me) and Until a Clean Pass, Mute (up to four tracks left for you to play), Metronome (As It Is, On or Off for this step), Move Up, Move Down, Duplicate and Delete Step.
Playing through it
Play starts from the step you picked, the first unless you click another; picking a row while the song plays goes there at once. Each step goes round its range like a loop, at its own speed times the practice speed, then moves on. The step playing is lit, with its pass and progress along the row, and the Transport pane’s display shows the step and the pass.
The Transport pane’s Playlist chip turns the playlist on or off, and its menu picks which. With a playlist on, a Score pane writes out the steps’ bars in order, each block headed with its times and speed.
Under the steps, the pane charts your passes; see Progress. In a Play Together session everyone has the song’s playlists and plays through the same steps together.