Practice Tools

Session tracking, drills, and focused practice.

Practice session log

Every time you play a file, Riffwork tracks the session. Sessions are saved automatically when you stop playback. The Practice tab in the Tools panel (⊞) shows:

Recent sessions with timestamps and duration
Top files by total practice time
Current streak (consecutive days with any practice)

Sessions are stored locally per file. Export as CSV using the download button in the Practice tab.

Practice heatmap

A 13×7 grid (13 weeks, GitHub contribution calendar style) visualizes your daily practice minutes. Color intensity reflects how much you practiced that day. The header shows your current streak and best streak.

Bar difficulty rating

Riffwork scores each bar on a difficulty scale (0–100) based on:

Note density (notes per beat)
Maximum fret number
Position shifts between consecutive notes
Chord size (notes per beat)

The result displays as a green-to-red heat chart across all bars. Click Drill top-25% hardest to queue the most difficult bars for focused practice.

Smart Practice Session

Automatically drills the hardest bars at three speed tiers:

60% speed × 3 loops
80% speed × 3 loops
100% speed × 2 loops

A floating overlay shows current bar, speed, and loop count. The drill hooks into loop-wrap detection - each completed loop advances the counter automatically.

Bar Roulette

Press 🎲 or the Roulette button to jump to a random bar and loop it. Configurable dwell time (how long to loop before picking the next bar) and count. Good for randomized warm-up drilling.

Loop manager

Save the current A–B loop range with a name, then recall it instantly. Useful for bookmarking specific passages in a long piece. Saved loops are stored per file in local storage.

Open the Loop Manager from the Practice tab in the Tools panel.

Bookmarks

Press ⚑ in the toolbar to bookmark the current playback position. Up to 9 bookmarks per file. Press Ctrl+Shift+1–9 to set a pin and Ctrl+1–9 to jump to it.

Bar notes

Add persistent text notes to any bar - practice reminders, fingering hints, corrections. Select a bar and open the Annotate panel (Aa), or open the Notes tab in the Tools panel to see all bar notes for the current file. On Pro accounts, bar notes sync to the cloud.

Play-Along mode

Click the 🎯 button in the player bar to enter play-along mode. Riffwork scores your MIDI playing against the loaded tab in real time - no manual grading, no clicking through quizzes.

While play-along is active and the score is playing:

Incoming MIDI notes are compared against the current bar's notes (pitch-class matching - any octave counts)
A live 🎯 NN% badge updates in the player bar as you play
MIDI notes do not enter the editor - they only score

When you stop playback or press 🎯 again to exit, a summary toast shows your overall score and a medal (🏆 ≥90% / ⭐ ≥70% / 👍 ≥50% / 💪 lower).

Play-Along auto-enables MIDI input when you turn it on. You need a MIDI keyboard, MIDI guitar interface, or any USB MIDI device connected. Works alongside A–B loop - loop a section and drill until you hit 100%.

Practice in Ritual

Click Practice in the toolbar (next to Lead Sheet) to open the current song in Ritual as a set of mic-graded practice lessons. Riffwork slices the song at its section markers (or into 8-bar chunks if there are none) and sends each section over as either a note-by-note drill or a reps-style metronome lesson, based on how much single-note melody it contains. Edits in the current session are included since the export runs off the live score.

Speed trainer

See Playback → Speed trainer for full details. Accessible from the Metro tab in the Tools panel.

BPM goals

Set a target tempo for any song via the score info card or the command palette (Set BPM goal for this song). A badge shows in the Songs library next to that song - ⟳ NN BPM while working toward it, ✓ NN BPM once achieved. Running the Speed Trainer up to your goal tempo automatically marks it achieved.

Chord ear training

The Chord Ear tab in the Tools panel extracts every unique chord from the loaded score and presents a 4-choice quiz. Chords play via AlphaSynth. Score and streak tracked within the session.

Interval trainer

A standalone 11-interval ear training quiz in the Tools panel. Plays two notes via Web Audio and asks you to identify the interval. Score tracked within the session.