Today's practice

The dashboard, today’s plan, and how a session runs from the first exercise to the last.

The dashboard

Every day starts on the dashboard. Its title is the KeyFu mark and name. The coach’s line that follows is always about today: before you have played anything it is the coach’s opening, later it is the reason for today’s plan, and once today’s plan is finished it says so. When this week’s built session is used, it says when the next one comes, and the first time you open KeyFu after getting Pro it welcomes you. Pull the dashboard down to check again for your session.

Help and Settings

Two round buttons lead out of the day. opens this guide. opens Settings, where your keyboard, sound, goal and account live.

Other screens have their own , which shows the cards for that screen and, under them, the headings from this guide that are about that screen. Tap a heading and it opens in place; tap it again and it closes.

Today’s key

The key control on the dashboard names the key today’s practice is in and who chose it: Coach’s pick, or Set by you (with library or chat added when you chose it there). When the coach takes you somewhere new, the coach’s line on the dashboard gives the reason.

Tap the key control to open Where we are.

Choosing where you are

Where we are lets you pick the musical key you practice in: its home note (Tone) and its kind, such as major or minor (Type). As you change them, the coach says what that key would mean for today’s plan: the same shapes in a new starting place, or shapes your hands haven’t met yet, which the preparation takes first.

The Make … button makes it your key, and today’s plan is put together in it. Once a key is yours, Let the coach pick hands the choice back. Swipe the sheet away to change nothing.

Today’s practice

The Today’s practice card is the day’s main move. It shows your coach and your daily practice time, and tapping it opens Today’s session, the plan for today, before anything plays. When the coach has named a Current focus, the card shows it too.

Practice sessions need a keyboard. Without one the card is dimmed and says it needs your keyboard; plug one in, or attach a computer keyboard, and it wakes up by itself.

No keyboard yet

If you told the app you don’t have a keyboard yet, a No keyboard yet card says so plainly: sessions wait until one is plugged in, or until a computer keyboard is attached. The coach, the library and your skills are open in the meantime.

The moment a keyboard connects, the card goes away and everything that needs one wakes up. You never have to restart the app.

Picking up where you left off

If you leave today’s session part-way, by closing it or with Take a short break, it is kept. It is also kept if your phone closes KeyFu in the background. A card then names the exercise you stopped at and how far through you were.

Pick up here restarts that exercise, shape practice first if you were still on it. Show plan opens today’s plan instead, with what you already played marked done. Soon after you leave, Pick up here leads; after a longer break the card reads You left this one open and Show plan leads, because your hands will have changed since.

When picking up is not possible

Before letting you back in, the app checks the exercise you would land on against how you are doing right now. If it is too much, the coach says so and Show plan becomes the way on: it builds something that fits.

On a rest day the card says the session will still be here tomorrow, and both buttons wait. Without a keyboard they wait too.

Rest days

Some days the app judges that a full session would be too much, for your hands or for your head. The coach says why on the card, and the card’s button changes instead of going dead.

When something light can still be put together, the heading stays Today’s practice with Something light instead: a short, easy plan that cannot be re-timed. When nothing light fits, the heading becomes Play freely, with no plan and nothing scored. Either way, the choice is yours.

Welcome back

After a longer break, a Welcome back card appears. The coach explains that it will go easier while you find your footing and keep planned sessions shorter, and that nothing you built has been reset.

If you would rather have the full session, tap No, push me. The card goes away for the rest of the day.

When today’s plan is done

Once you have played today’s plan to the end, the dashboard says Today’s plan is done. The Start card becomes More practice, beyond today’s plan, for when you want to keep going. Its plan can list what you have already played, marked done, beside new exercises, and the coach says that it added more.

A keyboard the app doesn’t know yet

When you connect a keyboard the app hasn’t learned, the dashboard shows a short line: This keyboard is new to me. Until it has learned how your keys respond to touch, it can’t read how hard you are working on them.

Tap the line to teach it, which takes about half a minute. Tap to stop asking about this keyboard; you can still do it later from Settings.

The coach and your skills

Talk to your coach opens the chat, where you can describe a goal and get a plan built for you. A small dot on the card means the coach has written something you haven’t read yet. More in Your coach.

Your skills shows the skill wheel: what you have built and what is going stale. What the coach wants you to work on next is pinned in the chat as Current focus, and the Today’s practice card shows it too. More in Your skills and progress.

Library, ear training and free play

Exercise library lets you browse exercises and routines and play any of them; see Library and routines. Train your ear opens ear training, where you hear something and play it back; it needs your keyboard. Play freely is time at the keys with no plan and no clock; it needs a keyboard connected, or a computer keyboard attached, right now.

Your routines lists the routines the coach built for you and the ones you saved, each with its own Start.

Today’s session

Today’s session is the plan, shown before anything plays. The time estimate by the title is what is still ahead of you, so it shrinks as the day goes on. A chip states the key this session is in; it is a fact, not a choice, because the plan has already been built in that key — the key itself is changed on the home screen, before a session is built. The coach’s line gives the reason for today’s plan, and names anything new.

The exercises are grouped in playing order: a Warm-up, then groups named after the library’s skills, and sometimes a Wind-down: your own thing, no plan. A new tag marks an exercise you have never played.

Looking at one exercise

Tap an exercise to open it: what it is and what it builds. Start here begins the session at this exercise; the ones before it are left out of this run. Skip today crosses it out for today only, and Put it back undoes that.

Some exercises appear twice, marked another pass today, with other exercises between the two. A second pass that would come right after the first, or nearly so, because what sits between them is already done, is left out of the plan. Exercises you have already played today show a check mark and done today; open one and Play it again puts it back into the plan. Also played today lists other things you practiced today.

A notch faster

When an exercise has held steady, the plan may serve it a notch faster than last time. The exercise then carries a small tempo mark and a line saying so; a step up has a skip button that keeps today’s tempo, and undo takes the step after all.

When the tempo stays the same or goes a notch slower, the line says that too, and the coach’s line says why.

The same exercise, played differently

Sometimes the plan serves a familiar exercise with something added, such as with both hands this time or the same chords, played differently. The exercise says what is different, and the coach says why.

skip keeps it the way you know it for today; the line then reads the way you played it last time. undo brings the change back. Sometimes the plan steps an exercise back instead, and the line says that too.

A version you already play in one key can come along to another key on the same note, say from C major to C minor. The coach names both keys, and one clean round in the new key makes it yours there.

Change time

Change time asks How much time do you have? and offers other session lengths, shorter and longer. Picking one puts the plan together again for that length; nothing is simply cut off the end. You can change it back the same way.

The coach adds that how far you get depends on how it goes: each exercise takes as long as it needs, so the time is a guide, not a promise. A light rest-day plan can’t be re-timed.

Dimmed for a moment

After a skip or a change of time, the plan is put together again. While that happens, which takes a moment, Change time and the skip, undo and replay buttons are dimmed and don’t respond. They come back as soon as the new plan appears, and the choices you already made carry over.

Start

Start plays every exercise that is not skipped or done, in order. If you skip everything, Start is dimmed.

Once you press it, this becomes today’s plan: open it again later and you see the same plan, with what you played marked done. If something still ahead has become too much after what you have played, the plan is changed and the coach says so. A later pass of an exercise that would now come right after the first is left out, and the coach says so too.

One exercise at a time

A session plays its exercises one after another, each on the practice screen (see Practicing an exercise). A small counter shows which one you are on and how many there are.

Today’s plan usually opens with a warm-up at an easy tempo. On the first warm-up exercise the coach adds a tip: roll your shoulders and shake out your hands. The coach’s line on each warm-up exercise says what it is for.

Moving on

When an exercise ends, its card offers Next exercise. On the last exercise the same button reads Finish session.

Before each exercise starts, the first one included, the app checks it against how you are doing. If it looks like too much, Let’s ease off appears with the reason and a choice.

Take a short break ends the session there. Today’s session is kept, starting at the exercise that was stopped (see Picking up where you left off). A swap for something lighter, when one exists, plays that instead; it changes only this session, and today’s plan shows what you really played. Continue as planned plays the exercise anyway.

Finishing or stopping

Finish session on the last exercise ends the session and takes you back to the dashboard, which then says today’s plan is done.

If you close the session before the end, nothing is lost: the dashboard offers to pick up where you left off.