# The &minuet; Handbook

## Introduction

Welcome to &minuet;: the software for music education. It is built around short exercises that let you listen, respond, and test your progress without leaving the app.

The app currently covers melodic ear training, rhythm recognition, clapping exercises, and singing exercises. The same exercise can often be practiced in more than one way, which is why the interface first asks whether you want to hear and identify, read and clap, or read and sing.

&minuet; home screen The &minuet; home screen

The home page is intentionally minimal. Use the navigation drawer to move to the settings page, the about page, or a category of exercises.

## Using &minuet;

The normal flow is simple: start &minuet;, choose an exercise, pick a practice mode, then work through a question or a test run.

### Starting &minuet;

Start &minuet; from the application launcher or from a terminal by running `minuet`. When the app opens, the home page shows a single prompt: Choose an exercise.

### Browse and choose exercises

The exercise browser groups topics by subject. Use the drawer or the category list to reach chords, intervals, rhythm, or scales. The browser updates itself from the installed exercise specification files, so the visible hierarchy reflects the exercises that are currently available.

&minuet; exercise browser The exercise browser in &minuet;

Each exercise entry has a title and a short description. Some categories lead directly to an exercise, while others expand into subcategories. The list is not fixed in code: new exercise files are merged into the hierarchy automatically when &minuet; starts.

### Practice modes

When you open an exercise, &minuet; asks how you want to practice it.

&minuet; practice mode chooser The practice mode chooser in &minuet;

There are two broad practice paths:

- Hear and identify plays the exercise and asks you to choose the answer from the available options. This is the main flow for melodic ear training.

- Read and clap is shown for rhythm exercises. Read and sing is shown for melodic exercises that accept vocal input, such as intervals and scales.

The practice choice changes the input mode, not the underlying exercise category. That means you can use the same exercise data for listening, clapping, or singing work depending on the topic.

### Melodic ear training

Melodic exercises follow the classic Minuet flow: the app plays a question, shows answer choices, and lets you replay the prompt if you need to hear it again. This manual mode is used for intervals, scales, and chords when you choose Hear and identify.

&minuet; chord exercise in manual mode A chord exercise in manual mode in &minuet;

The exercise page gives you the controls you need for a single question or a longer test run:

- New Question starts another question.

- Play Question repeats the current prompt.

- Give Up reveals the answer.

- Start Test begins a scored sequence of questions.

- Stop Test ends the test run.

In melodic exercises, the answer buttons and the keyboard or staff view stay aligned, so you can see how each candidate maps to the notes being played.

Chord exercises use the same manual workflow, but the prompt is played as a chord instead of a melodic sequence. &minuet; plays the chord, shows the root note on the keyboard and staff, and asks you to choose one chord quality from the available answers. The chord catalog includes triads, inversions, suspended chords, seventh chords, ninth chords, eleventh chords, and mixed chord sets such as Lots of chords.

Use Play Question to hear the chord again before answering. In test mode, &minuet; scores the sequence using the configured number of exercises from the settings page.

### Rhythm and clapping

Rhythm exercises focus on timing rather than pitch. In the clapping mode, &minuet; listens to your microphone input and compares the onsets to the target pattern.

The Easy with rests and Medium with rests categories add silent positions to the corresponding note-only patterns. Listening exercises avoid choices that sound identical, while Read and clap includes every mixed note-and-rest pattern.

&minuet; clapping exercise A rhythm clapping exercise in &minuet;

The clapping view shows the rhythm pattern cards, an input level meter, and a Calibrate Silence action. The count-in happens before recording starts, so you can settle into the tempo before the exercise listens for claps.

Use the rhythm practice to work on:

- recognizing simple rhythm figures by ear;

- matching your claps to the beat;

- staying inside the configured timing tolerance.

### Singing exercises

Singing exercises use the microphone to compare what you sing with the target pitch content. The same practice screen is used for both interval and scale work, but the target and feedback change with the chosen exercise.

For interval exercises, &minuet; plays the root note and asks you to sing the requested interval relative to it. For scale exercises, the app presents a scale or mode and expects you to sing the notes in sequence while staying on pitch and on beat.

&minuet; singing interval exercise A singing interval exercise in &minuet; &minuet; singing scale exercise A singing scale exercise in &minuet;

The singing view shows the note targets, pitch and onset feedback, a live input meter, and a Calibrate Silence action. &minuet; also counts in before the first note, so you can start on the correct beat. The scale view extends the same feedback to longer sequences, which makes it useful for practicing melodic memory in addition to pitch matching.

Singing exercises are influenced by several settings:

- Voice class selects the expected vocal range.

- Pitch tolerance controls how far from the target pitch a sung note may be.

- Timing tolerance controls how much rhythmic drift is accepted for claps.

## Settings

The settings page is split into four sections: Practice, Sound, Microphone, and Advanced. The first three sections keep the beginner controls visible. The advanced section stays collapsed until you open it.

&minuet; basic settings The basic settings page in &minuet;

The visible settings cover the controls most users need day to day:

- Exercise speed sets the tempo in beats per minute.

- Number of rhythm patterns controls the size of rhythm practice sets.

- Number of exercises sets the length of a test run.

- Volume adjusts playback loudness.

- Instrument selects the melodic sound used for ear training.

- Voice class selects the target singing range.

The microphone section also includes short helper descriptions for the tolerance and calibration controls. Those descriptions explain when to tighten the tolerance and when to recalibrate silence.

&minuet; advanced settings The advanced settings section in &minuet;

Advanced settings expose detection algorithms and thresholds for difficult microphones or noisy rooms. Use them when the default detection behavior is not enough. The section is collapsed by default and includes a Reset to Defaults button so you can restore the factory values after experimenting.

The advanced section includes separate groups for clapping detection and singing detection. Typical controls include onset method, onset threshold, input gate, minimum onset strength, silence level, pitch method, scoring mode, pitch confidence, and stable pitch frames.

## Creating new &minuet;'s exercises

&minuet;'s exercises are defined in &JSON; specification files. The app loads all available files at startup and merges them into the visible exercise tree.

    {
      "exercises": [
        {
          "name": "Intervals",
          "root": "29..69",
          "playMode": "scale",
          "userMessage": "Hear the interval and choose your answer",
          "numberOfSelectedOptions": 1,
          "_icon": "minuet-intervals-symbolic.svg",
          "children": [
            {
              "name": "Ascending melodic intervals",
              "and-tags": ["interval", "ascending"],
              "children": [
                {
                  "name": "Seconds",
                  "or-tags": ["2"],
                  "description": "Practice identifying ascending melodic seconds by ear."
                }
              ]
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }

The top-level object contains an `exercises` array. Each item in that array is either a category or an exercise leaf. Categories use `children` to define the next level of the tree.

Useful fields include:

- `name` gives every node its visible label.

- `root` limits the note range used to generate the prompt.

- `playMode` selects scale, chord, or rhythm playback.

- `userMessage` customizes the instruction shown to the user.

- `numberOfSelectedOptions` controls how many answers may be correct.

- `_icon` sets the icon shown in the drawer and exercise browser.

- `and-tags` and `or-tags` help group and filter related nodes.

- `description` gives the browser a short explanation for the node.

- `options` describes answer choices for a leaf exercise.

- `sequenceFromRoot` defines the note offsets for melodic answers.

- `template` is used by rhythm exercises to render notation.

The app merges files that share the same category names, so separate specification files can contribute to one visible hierarchy. Install them system-wide or place them in `minuet/exercises/` under the generic data location returned by ``qtpaths` `--paths GenericDataLocation``.

## Credits and License

&minuet;

Program copyright 2016 &Sandro.Andrade; &Sandro.Andrade.mail;

Documentation Copyright © 2026 &Sandro.Andrade; &Sandro.Andrade.mail;

&underFDL; &underGPL;
&documentation.index;