How practice tracking works

Our new practice tracking feature is designed to help you track your progress, stay consistent, and build a practice habit that works for you.

We believe getting better at music comes from practicing regularly, but that doesn't mean you need to practice every single day. Everyone has different schedules, commitments, and goals.

That's why we've taken a slightly different approach to practice tracking from the approach of prodding you to keep endless daily streak alive:

First, you set your own goal. Whether you want to practice once a week or every day, it's entirely up to you. We want to help you build a routine that's realistic and sustainable.

Second, we focus on weeks, not days. Life gets busy, and missing a day shouldn't feel like a failure. Instead of chasing a daily streak, we celebrate each week that you meet the target you've set for yourself.

Along the way, you'll be able to see how far you've come, build your weekly streak, and unlock awards for reaching milestones.

If you've been learning with us for a while, you might notice that your previous practice sessions aren't showing.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to record practice history from before this feature launched. That means your tracked practice time, days, and streaks will start from when the feature became available.

We're sorry about this, especially if you've already spent months or years practicing with us. We know how much work you've put in, even if we can't show all of it in your new practice tracker.

Here's how it works.

When you join Pickup Music, we'll create a personalized practice plan based on your onboarding quiz.

Your plan includes your:

You'll find your practice plan on your homepage. You can edit it anytime by clicking the Practice plan heading.

Your initial answers also help us recommend a learning plan with classes suited to you. Updating your practice plan won't automatically change these class recommendations. If you'd like help finding what to learn next, reach out to our coaches through the Support button.

When you first complete a lesson, we'll ask you to choose a weekly target of 1 to 7 practice days.

We recommend starting with something realistic. You can always change it later.

We've deliberately made it easy to count a practice day. All you need to do is either:

Any class counts, whether it's part of your learning plan or something you've chosen yourself.

You can take as many lessons as you like in a day, but each day only counts once toward your weekly target.

Every day you learn counts, whether you play for a minute or an hour. We want to help you build the habit of showing up regularly.

At the top of your homepage, you'll see your weekly practice tracker. Each day you practice, a checkmark will appear marking the day as a practice day.

Your practice week runs from Monday to Sunday, based on your local timezone.

As soon as you reach your weekly target, you'll earn a streak for that week.

For example, if your target is three days and you practice on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you'll earn your weekly streak on Friday. You don't have to wait until Sunday.

Your streak measures consecutive weeks of meeting your goal, not consecutive days of practicing.

If you miss your target one week, your streak resets to zero. But you can start building a new one the following week.

As your streak grows, you'll unlock badges for reaching these milestones:

These milestones are the same for everyone, whether your weekly target is one day or seven days. You're working toward the goal you've set for yourself, not someone else's.

And once you've unlocked an award, it's yours to keep, even if your streak resets.

Your schedule will change from time to time, so your practice target can too.

Click the ‘Practice plan’ heading on your homepage, adjust your weekly target, and choose whether the change should apply this week or next week.

Changing your target for the current week will immediately update your progress toward that week's streak.

For example, if you've practiced four days toward a five-day target, lowering your target to four days will complete your goal for that week.

If there aren't enough days remaining to meet your new target, including the days you've already practiced, you'll need to apply it from next week.

You can't change targets for previous weeks.

Your homepage includes a ‘Practice history’ calendar showing:

Click on a practice day to see which classes and lessons you worked on, and how much time you spent on them. You can also click any activity to jump back into that class.

Click the ‘Practice history’ heading to open the ‘All activity’ page, where you can browse all of your recorded class history.

We track three things:

The ‘All-time progress’ section of your homepage brings together your learning stats, including total practice time, days practiced, lessons completed, grades completed, performances submitted, and your best streak.

You'll also find your certificates of completion from Learning Pathways, Challenges, and Artist Series.

Each instrument has its own practice plan, weekly target, streaks, awards, and practice history.

For example, you might set a three-day weekly target for guitar and a two-day target for piano.

If you practice both instruments on the same day, that day counts toward both targets.

You can switch between instruments to see your progress for each one.

Practice tracking also works across our website and iOS app, with your activity automatically synced between them.

We know streaks and practice targets aren't for everyone. If you'd rather learn without seeing them, that's completely fine.

Go to Settings → Practice targets to hide the practice tracking widget on your homepage. You can turn it off for all instruments or just individual instruments.

Your progress won't be lost. We'll keep recording your practice and maintaining your streaks in the background. If you decide to turn tracking back on, everything will still be there.

You can also use Show more / Show less on the homepage to expand or collapse the widget.