Loop practice

Repeating the one passage that keeps failing

Running a whole piece to rehearse four seconds of it is the most common way to waste a practice hour. Loop practice exists to stop that.

The problem

There is usually one sangati, one phrase, one awkward leap. Played at full speed it goes past before you can hear what you did. Played on a general-purpose music player you cannot slow it without the pitch sagging, and you cannot repeat exactly the same four seconds twice.

What the app does

• Mark a start and an end. Two points on the track, set with a dual-knob slider, or tap the bar to seek. The loop repeats exactly that span.
• Slow it down without dropping the key. Speed and pitch move independently, so half speed is still in the same pitch you will perform it in.
• Shift the pitch to your kattai. Independently of the speed. A recording made by a singer whose Sa is nowhere near yours becomes usable.
• Save it. A tuned, slowed version persists, so tomorrow you start where you left off instead of rebuilding the setup.

How to use it

1. Open the piece you are working on.
2. Go to loop practice and set the start and end points around the passage. Leave a beat of run-up before the hard part — starting cold on the difficult note teaches you less.
3. Drop the speed until you can hear every note distinctly. If you cannot hear it, you are not practising it, you are repeating it.
4. Shift the pitch to your own kattai if the recording is in another key.
5. Sing along with the loop until it stops being a surprise, then raise the speed in small steps.
6. When it holds at full speed, record a take and check the pitch rather than trusting your ear alone — your ear has just heard the phrase forty times and has stopped being objective.

Where it fits

Loop practice is for drilling. It is not assessment: it does not score you. Pair it with the drone from the tanpura and tala guide so you keep a reference pitch while you drill, and with a recorded take afterwards so you find out whether the drilling worked.