music_practice_routines v1.0.0

name: music-practice-routines description: Builds deliberate practice routines for musicians: slow practice, chunking, tempo laddering, metronome discipline, self-recording, and balanced weekly plans. Triggers when someone wants a practice plan, better technique for learning a hard passage, or a way to stop plateauing.

Music Practice Routines

Purpose

Turn "practice more" into practice that actually works. This skill converts the research on how musicians get better (deliberate practice, motor learning) into concrete routines: what to do in a session, how to attack a hard passage, and how to schedule a week of technique, repertoire, and rest. It works for any instrument.

The evidence base lives in references/practice-science.md. Key facts: K. Anders Ericsson's 1993 Berlin Academy of Music study found the single significant differentiator between violinist tiers was accumulated deliberate practice, and the students rated solitary, focused practice as the most relevant activity. Slow practice is near-universal among professionals (99% classical, 89% non-classical in a 2022 survey). Don't overclaim beyond this: very slow practice may not transfer perfectly to fast execution, which is exactly what tempo laddering exists to bridge.

Workflow

1. Diagnose the session constraints

Ask or infer: instrument, level (beginner / intermediate / advanced), available minutes per day, days per week, and the target (a specific piece, technique problem, or general improvement). Don't plan a 90-minute day for someone with 25 minutes.

2. Build the weekly structure

• Beginners: 20-30 minutes daily, short. Intermediates (6-18 months): 60-90 min/day, 5-6 days/week, split into ~20-minute blocks with short breaks. Advanced: longer, but keep blocks focused; intensity beats duration.
• Rough budget: most of each session (aim for ~70%) on targeted work, the rest on review and free play. Split the week across three buckets: technique, repertoire, rest.
• Schedule rest: follow a 2-on-1-off rhythm (two practice days, one rest day) or at least one full rest day per week. Consolidation happens off the instrument too.
• Emit the plan using the template in assets/weekly-plan.md.

3. Attack hard passages with the practice ladder

For any passage that keeps breaking:

1. Slow it down to half tempo or less. Play it slowly enough to notice everything: tension, wrong finger positions, wasted motion. If you can't feel the problem, you're too fast.
2. Chunk it. Isolate 1-2 bars, or one hand, or one rhythm cell. Master the smallest chunk, then expand it, then reintegrate with surrounding material. Motor programs assemble from chunks; practice should build them that way.
3. Tempo ladder. Set the metronome to your Tempo of Consistent Control: the fastest tempo where you can play the chunk cleanly. Rule: 3 clean reps in a row, then +1-5 BPM. If it breaks, drop back 5-10 BPM and rebuild. Periodic jumps to target tempo tell you how far you've come.
4. Record yourself. Audio and video. The mic catches errors your ears smooth over; video catches posture and mechanics issues (high wrist, stiff thumb, extra tension). Compare against a checklist of your known technical issues.
5. Log it. Use bin/practice_log.py to record session date, focus area, tempos achieved, and notes. The log is what turns "I think I'm improving" into a fact.

4. Metronome discipline

• The metronome's main job is keeping you slow. Musicians drift fast on their own.
• Count in with 3-4 clicks before starting. Count subdivisions aloud ("1 e + a") on fast passages; set the click to subdivide for 16th-note work.
• Play some reps without the click so the pulse becomes internal.
• If you plateau at one tempo, briefly overshoot it (push 5-10 BPM past target) then return. The target will feel slower by comparison.

Output Contract

A routine from this skill always includes:

• A weekly schedule: days, minutes, and the technique/repertoire/rest split.
• At least one worked passage example: the chunk breakdown, starting tempo, ladder steps, and rep rule.
• A self-recording checklist tied to the user's known technical issues.
• The practice log command to run after each session.

The plan must fit the user's actual time. Never hand a beginner a professional's schedule and never let "play the whole piece at speed" pass as practice.

Operating Rules

• Evidence, not folklore. Every technique claim in an emitted routine must trace to a sourced fact in references/practice-science.md. If you can't source it, cut it or label it clearly as opinion.
• Specific tempos and bar numbers, always. "Practice slowly" is not a plan. "Bars 12-16, start at 60 BPM, 3 clean reps, +5 BPM" is a plan.
• Watch for these failure modes: rushing past mistakes at full tempo (mistakes practiced get learned; a wrong note takes once to learn and ten times to correct), practicing only the easy parts, sessions longer than focus lasts, and skipping rest days.
• Adapt to the instrument. Slow practice means long bows for strings, separate hands for piano, clean picking for guitar. Ask for the instrument before prescribing mechanics.
• Keep the motivation honest. Deliberate practice is effortful; even the best violinists rated it labor-intensive and not enjoyable. Sell the routine on results, not on fun.