Cut the piece into four-bar blocks
Four bars are short enough to hold in your head and long enough to make music. Mark the blocks in pencil before you start. Where a repeat or a second ending changes what comes next, start a new block, so each block is played exactly as written. A block that repeats an earlier one needs no work of its own.
Climb each block in small steps
Each step changes one thing, so a mistake has one cause. On the first steps the music waits for each right note; on the later ones it keeps the tempo:
- Simplified, waiting for each note: right hand, left hand, both. Only for bars that are hard as written: quick notes struck as chords, fewer keys in a chord.
- As written, waiting for each note: right hand, left hand, both.
- At 60% of the tempo: right hand, left hand, both.
- At full tempo, both hands.
- Once more at full tempo, with the notes hidden.
Move on after three clean passes
What you keep depends on how many of your attempts were correct, not on how long you practised. So the tempo stays where you can play the block cleanly, and three clean passes at the step's tempo finish the step. A wrong pass does not wipe out the clean ones before it. A very easy step, single notes in one hand position, needs only one.
Know what went wrong
“Wrong” is not enough to fix a mistake. After each one Gradiano names it: a wrong pitch or octave, a missed or extra note, early or late, too short or too long, or a chord whose notes came apart. A neighbouring key you correct at once is noted, not counted against you.
Join the blocks where they meet
Mistakes like to hide at the joins. Once two neighbouring blocks are mastered, play them as a pair; four blocks make a section; the last chain is the whole piece. Pianists remember a piece by its structure, so the chains follow the piece in order.
A little, most days
Sleep between sessions makes playing more accurate, so a short session each day beats one long one a week. Gradiano suggests another piece after 15 minutes on one, and a break when a step will not come clean. Teachers usually advise 20 to 30 minutes most days; that is experience, not a measured optimum.
Without the app
The method needs no software: a pencil to mark the blocks, a metronome set to 60% and a tally of clean passes. What Gradiano adds is the judging. It hears every note from your MIDI keyboard, so you do not have to listen for your own mistakes while you play.
Try it on a piece
Pick a score from the catalog and start with its first block.