Detailed feature reference

Shape the phrase guide

CADENCE — SHAPE THE PHRASE

Library → choose a piano piece → Practise this piece.
Choose one or both piano notation staves and 1–8 reviewed bars. Complete your opening pass,
then choose Shape the phrase in the practice panel. The full score stays open.

YOUR PIANO TAKES
New piano passes automatically save a recording alongside their practice result:
opening, focused notes, connected melody, surrounding phrase and independent
return. Space/rhythm exercises do not create piano recordings. Older Cadence
passes contain entrance summaries only and cannot be reconstructed as takes.

Each take keeps MIDI presses, releases, key velocity and sustain controls.
Release the keys and pedal before the count-in. Count-in-time playing is kept
if captured; no click or demonstration is mixed into the replay. A take ends
0.4 seconds after the written phrase; still-held notes are marked as clipped.
Stopped or interrupted passes remain ungraded and do not create a saved take.

LISTEN AND COMPARE
Choose a take, then Listen to A. The sampled piano plays your timing and touch.
The full-score cursor follows confidently matched entrances and interpolates
between them. Wrong or extra notes remain audible; they do not invent score
anchors. A take with no reliable matches plays without a cursor.

The performance trace shows keys held as solid strokes and pedal sustain as
paler tails. This is a MIDI replay using Cadence’s bundled piano, not an audio
recording of your FP-10 or its exact tone. No microphone or AI service is used.

Choose another take of the same source revision, staves, bars and partner setting to Listen to B.
Both use original timing and the same fixed playback gain. Different practice
tempos are labelled. Switch between A and B to compare how the phrase sounds.

Listen through A, then save a reflection and an optional listening note. The
join observations open after that reflection. There is no expression grade.

CONNECT THE MELODY
In a single-staff session, choose Connect the melody in focused practice, or
Record a connected melody in Shape the phrase. Hear the next note inwardly,
then let the line pass between keys. Try without pedal first if comfortable.
The click supports this focused attempt. The completed take opens for listening.

Observations are available for adjacent, distinct pitches in a single melodic
line. Written rests, repeated pitches, chords, overlapping voices and detached
notes are excluded. Missing/ambiguous pitches, extra intervening notes and
missing releases withhold the affected measurements. Arrival-time MIDI fallback
withholds precise join measurements for the take. These gaps are not failures.

A positive gap is time between releasing one key and pressing the next.
An overlap means both keys were physically down. A separate label says when
sustain pedal bridged a physical gap. The sustain interpretation is binary
(CC64 >= 64); half-pedal, acoustic decay, fingering and physical technique are
not evaluated. A gap or overlap is an observation to listen to, not a judgement.

PRACTICE AND RETURN
The connected-melody intention stays with the phrase when you return to its
surrounding bars and later review. The existing schedule still uses independent
pitch and entrance evidence; expression observations never lengthen it.
Opening old takes/observations during a review counts as support. Listening to
a take records exposure before playback; the next fresh review needs at least
20 hours without recorded exposure. This persists across relaunches.

SAVING AND SPACE
Recordings, practice results and stage changes save atomically. If saving fails,
the completed take stays in memory across navigation for retry; keep the app
open until it is saved. Changed/deleted/unreviewed source music cannot receive
old results or play a take against different notes.

Manage saved takes lists recordings across pieces. Delete a recording to free
space; its practice result and review schedule remain. Cadence keeps up to 256
takes with a bounded total event budget, and never silently deletes old takes.

Practice data becomes format 12; formats 1–11 migrate, and older app writers
reject the newer format. Your scores are unchanged. The current release was
checked with virtual MIDI and native audio; physical FP-10 and VoiceOver trials
remain to be done. Use your piano’s own sound while playing as before.

Hands-together sessions also save takes. Their one-hand recordings remember
whether Cadence played the other part; the partner is not in your recorded MIDI.
A/B comparison requires the same staves, bars and partner setting. Two-staff takes
have no connected-melody measurements: listen to how the parts fit together.

Make it flow now adds barline joins, optional tempo suggestions and thinning
click support inside focused practice. See Make it flow guide.txt.