16. Playing and practising

Wait for Me

Wait for Me teaches the notes. The song plays up to the next note of your part and holds there until you play it, then goes on. Use it on a passage you don’t know yet, before you worry about timing.

Wait for Me

Available on every platform.

What it listens to

Practice listens to a MIDI instrument: a keyboard, an e-kit or a MIDI guitar. With no MIDI instrument plugged in, it listens to the audio input instead, if it’s on (see Practising by microphone). On the web, a MIDI instrument comes through Web MIDI, in Chrome, Edge and Firefox on a computer, and there’s no audio input (MIDI on the web). With neither, the mode doesn’t take hold: the song plays as written, and the Practice band and the pill over the pane say why, in red.

Starting

1. Choose Wait for Me (⌃⌥⌘W)Wait for Me (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+W)Wait for Me (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+W (⌥⇧⌘W on a Mac)), or Practice… (⌃⌥⌘P)Practice… (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+P)Practice… (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+P (⌥⇧⌘P on a Mac)) and then Wait for Me in the Practice band at the top of the Playlist pane. Choosing a mode while the song is stopped opens that pane.
2. Check the part. The band names the track you’ll play: the armed tracks, else the track you’re working in. ‹ and › pick another track. The part gets a stripe down its header and a wash over its lanes.
3. Check what the band says it listens to. Play a note: the band shows what it heard.
4. Press Start in the band, or play the song as usual.

Your part’s written notes don’t sound while you practise: what you play on it does. Turn on Hear the Part in the band to hear them as a guide. If the part’s track is muted, the band says so: unmute it to hear what you play.

While it waits

The notes it’s waiting for are ringed in the Editor and marked in the Score, and ringed in brass on an Instrument pane, where Falling Notes stop with their bars on the keys. A banner names them: the note with its string and fret on a fretted part, the piece on a drum part, the pitches on keys. Play every note of a chord, in any order, and the song goes on from the moment you played the last one, so the next beat keeps your timing.

• A wrong note sounds, counts as wrong, and doesn’t move the song on.
• Playing ahead doesn’t stop the song: a note played up to a quarter of a second before it comes counts. As you get better, the waits get shorter, until the song doesn’t stop at all.
• Let It Ring (in the band) keeps the other parts sounding while it waits. Off, they go silent. Drums and recordings can’t ring on.

After four seconds on one note, the banner asks “Not this one?” and offers Skip →, which counts the note as missed and moves to the next, and Play Along, which turns practice off and plays on from where it held. Skip This Note (⌃⌥⌘→)Skip This Note (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Right)Skip This Note (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Right (⌥⇧⌘→ on a Mac)) skips at any time.

The pass

Each lap of the loop, each pass of a playlist step, or the song played to its end is a pass. The pill over the pane, in brass while Wait for Me waits for you, counts it as you go: the notes right first time out of the part’s notes, the wrong notes, and the time spent waiting. A pass with every note and no wrong one is clean. Passes are kept for Progress.

Wait for Me isn’t available while you play together: the transport is everyone’s, so it can’t wait for one person. Listen works in a session.

A playlist step can practise Wait for Me on its own, whatever mode you chose: its menu’s Practice › Wait for Me sets it, and the Practice menu’s Learn It: Wait for Me, Then Listen makes a playlist that starts with it. See Playlists and practice steps.