Daily Puzzle

The lesson

The Daily Puzzle is the smallest practice unit in the app, which is what makes it the only one people actually keep. A single puzzle a day beats a two-hour session every third week, because recall improves with the number of separate occasions you retrieve something, not with the total minutes spent staring at it.

The streak is a hook, not a goal. What makes the day useful is the thirty seconds after the puzzle: write down what the puzzle asked, what you answered, and — if you were wrong — the specific reason. Not 'I got it wrong'. Something like 'I heard the third as major because the melody sat on the fifth'. Reasons repeat. When the same reason shows up three days running you have found your actual weak spot, and that is what Focus Mode is for.

Speed is worth nothing here. If you can solve the puzzle instantly, slow down and justify the answer out loud before submitting; if you cannot justify it, you guessed correctly, which teaches nothing. Guessing right is the most expensive outcome in ear training because it feels like learning.

Protect the streak with a floor, not a ceiling. On a bad day the deal is one puzzle, one line in the log, done. Never let the ritual become something you can fail.

The session, step by step

1. Step 1

   Same time every day

   Attach it to an existing habit — coffee, commute, warm-up.

2. Step 2

   Answer out loud

   State your reasoning before you submit, even when you are sure.

3. Step 3

   Log the reason

   One line: what it was, what you said, why you said it.

4. Step 4

   Replay it on the keyboard

   Right or wrong, play the correct answer twice before closing.

5. Step 5

   Weekly read-back

   Every seventh day, read the week's lines and name the pattern.

Drills

• No-guess rule

  If you cannot justify an answer, mark it as a guess even when it is right.

• Cold open

  Do the puzzle before you touch an instrument. No warm-up ear.

• Recall at night

  Twelve hours later, recall the day's puzzle from memory and re-sing it.

Mistakes that waste the session

• —Chasing the streak number and letting the puzzle become a click.
• —Not writing the reason, which makes a month of puzzles unusable as data.
• —Doubling up to 'catch up' — spacing is the mechanism, so a missed day is simply gone.