Detailed feature reference

Passage practice guide

CADENCE — PRACTISE THIS PASSAGE

Quit an older running copy before opening this build. Existing scores,
studies, pathways, preferences and progress remain on this Mac.

START FROM YOUR MUSIC
1. Open Studio → Write & arrange (Command-3) and choose a guitar or piano score.
2. Set From / Through to a passage of up to 16 bars.
3. Choose Practise passage. The saved copy opens in Studio → Rehearse (Command-3).
4. Loop it slowly with a count-in and optional metronome. Choose guitar or
   piano under Under your fingers. Piano copies start on the piano view.
5. Use Back to Compose to continue writing at the selected bars. An unchanged score reuses its
   existing practice copy, including playback settings, notes and tempo goals.
   Source edits create another saved copy; earlier copies keep their own music.
   The study selector keeps all copies available.

BUILD A COMFORTABLE TEMPO
Set a target and a step of 2, 5 or 10 bpm. Mark comfortable records the current
speed with a date. Try the next tempo sets a faster speed for the next playback,
up to the target and the 150% playback limit. Nothing speeds up automatically.
The goal, best recorded speed and latest history belong to this part, playback
staff selection and bar range. Changing bars or staves opens a different goal;
return to the old selection to see its progress. Up to 200 recent marks per
selection and 256 selections per study are retained. These are self-reports,
not microphone assessments of timing, accuracy or technique.

SING WITH SOLFÈGE
Choose Sing with solfège, then select a staff and voice. The guide takes the
top note at each chord onset, rather than inventing an arrangement. Ties stay
joined, including notes held into the selected bars. The guide is divided into
groups of eight notes; use its arrows to move through a longer passage.
Click a syllable to hear that pitch and locate it in the notation. Hear phrase
plays the selected line with its written durations, rests and practice speed.
Changing reference register shifts the whole group by octaves.

Hear the phrase or first note, wait for playback to end, then choose Listen
to my voice. Grant microphone access if macOS asks. Hold each pitch steadily
for about a second. Leave a short gap between repeated notes. The check moves
through the pitch sequence; it does not grade rhythm, syllables, lyrics or
instrument technique. Restart lets you retry without replaying the reference.

Any comfortable starting pitch is accepted by default, provided the rest of
the group keeps the same intervals. Match reference key requires the source
key, accepting a shared whole-octave shift. Shifting only a later note by an
octave is treated as a different interval. Optional pitch guidance shows higher,
lower or steady for the next target. The reference is A4 = 440 Hz. The tuner’s
separate calibration setting does not change this singing reference.

Movable Do follows the score’s major/minor key. Do-based minor uses Me, Le and
Te; chromatic syllables follow the written spelling. Missing key mode defaults
to major; choose minor when appropriate. Explicit other modes and non-octave
transposing parts show an explanation instead of an unreliable automatic guide.
Concert-pitch piano and guitar octave notation are supported. Normal Studies
playback remains available for other scores. Earlier saved studies recover key
mode from their retained MusicXML while preserving saved note identities.

Voice input is analysed locally and is never uploaded. Playback pauses voice
listening. Leaving the workspace or changing its passage stops listening.
This is an experimental pitch aid; synthetic pitch tests do not establish
accuracy for every voice, microphone or room. Headphones and a quiet room help.

MAKE IT PART OF YOUR LEARNING
Discuss passage opens a coach question with the selected notes, key mode,
meter, voices, practice notes and reported comfortable tempos. Create a pathway
uses the same source passage. Ask about this phrase also names the chosen
singing line and solfège. No recording is sent and no performance quality is
inferred from tempo marks. Nothing is sent automatically; send the question or
request the pathway when ready. Configure your own model/key in Settings.

SAVE AND RETURN
Studies, practice copies, tempo goals and notes are stored in studies.json
under ~/Library/Application Support/Cadence/. Back up that folder for a copy
of your work. The model key stays separately in Keychain. Removing a study
also removes that copy’s tempo history and notes; source scores in Compose
remain available. You can keep up to 100 studies when creating practice copies.

VERIFICATION
Core regression tests cover snapshot fidelity, scope-specific tempo
history, old-save migration, minor/chromatic syllables, separate piano hands,
chord reduction, ties, rests, octave shifts, repeated-note releases and
synthetic pitch detection through a complete melody. Native checks cover the
Compose bridge, duplicate reuse, independent edited copies, local persistence,
return navigation, source-grounded coach drafts, singing-guide controls,
notation cursor movement and silent audio output. Tests do not open the mic,
call a paid AI model or change user data. Live human singing remains a manual
check on your own microphone.

Cadence’s source is AGPL-3.0-or-later. Bundled dependencies retain their notices.

COMPOSE EXPRESSION
Practice copies now retain two voices per staff, slurs, accents, staccato and
ppp–fff dynamics. Singing lets you choose the upper or lower line separately;
duplicate guitar tab is excluded from voice choices. Normal playback performs
both lines with simple synth expression. See Compose guide.txt for details.

PDF DRAFTS
Review an imported page beside the original in Compose, then choose Practise
these bars or use Full editor → Practise passage. The practice copy retains
the current corrected music. Back to Compose returns to the source score,
where its saved PDF remains available.