How to Practice a Difficult Drum Bar

When you play a groove, most of it may go well, but one bar may still give you trouble.

In that case, you may want to practice just that bar instead of the whole groove.

We wanted this drill to feel simple and convenient. Here’s how it works, step by step.

1. Open Coach Results. After a take, Coach Results shows a strip of colored segments. Each segment is one bar of the groove.

2. Find the bar. Tap any bar to see how you played it.

3. Look inside. The bar opens with a detailed view of your playing: the notation with colored notes, how many notes you hit, and your Timing and Dynamics for that bar.

4. Loop it. Tap Loop this pattern to practice the difficult bar on its own. The app creates an exercise using only that bar at the current groove tempo.

5. Choose the number of repeats. Set Repeats to any number from 1 to 20. The default is 4, and iQuantize remembers your choice the next time you loop a bar.

6. Return to the full groove. When the loop ends, Coach Results shows Practice feedback. Tap Return to full groove and play the complete groove again to check the bar in context.

Bars. On the strip in Coach Results:

• Green. The bar went well.
• Yellow. The timing or dynamics were a little off.
• Red. The timing or dynamics were far off, or you played extra notes.
• Dark red. You missed notes.
• Dark red and red side by side. The bar has both missed and extra notes, like bar 8 in the video.

Notes. When you open a bar, each note has a colored dot. The legend below the notation shows only the colors used in that bar.

• On target (green). The note’s timing and dynamics were on target.
• Close (orange). The note’s timing or dynamics were a little off.
• Dynamics (fuchsia). You played the note, but its dynamics were far off.
• Missed (dark red). You did not play a written note.
• Extra (red). You played a hit where no note was written.