Instrument Practice Coach

Daily practice reminders for music students, built on structured learning plans and Hermes Agent cron jobs.

What This Is

A lightweight system that pairs structured instrument-learning plans with automated daily reminders sent wherever you want (terminal, Telegram, Discord). Each day you get:

• Which week/day you're on in your plan
• Today's specific tasks (read from your plan file)
• A session template (warm-up, technique, repertoire, review)
• One focus tip for encouragement

How It Works

1. Pick an instrument and start date
2. Use the skill to scaffold a personalized N-week learning plan (or bring your own)
3. Schedule a daily cron job that reads your plan and delivers a targeted reminder
4. Follow the daily tasks, fill in progress, and complete a playable instrument

Current Plans Included

Instrument	Duration	File
Mandolin	12 weeks	plans/12-week-mandolin-plan.md

(Use the skill templates to add Guitar, Piano, Violin, Banjo, Ukulele, Saxophone, Drums, etc.)

Repo Structure

instrument-practice-coach/
├── README.md
├── plans/
│   └── 12-week-mandolin-plan.md    ← Your personalized learning plan
├── templates/
│   └── plan-template.md            ← Scaffold for new instruments
├── scripts/
│   └── setup_practice_reminder.py  ← Helper to create the cron job
└── .github/
    └── workflows/
        └── ci.yml                  ← Plan file lint + coverage

Skill Reference

The daily reminders are generated by the instrument-practice-coach Hermes skill, which:

• Parses week/day from a structured markdown plan
• Calculates which day you're on from your start date
• Pulls the exact tasks for that day
• Formats a concise daily reminder (under 300 words)

See the full skill at ~/.hermes/skills/instrument-practice-coach/

Quick Start

1. Clone this repo
2. Copy templates/plan-template.md to plans/{your-instrument}-plan.md
3. Fill in the 8–12 week daily tasks
4. Run the setup script or ask Hermes to create the cron job
5. Receive daily reminders at your chosen time

Naming Suggestion (Help People Remember to Practice)

For maximum daily recall, name the repo:

daily-mandolin — because "daily" in the name triggers the habit cue every time you see it.

Other good options:

• practice-mandolin-daily — verb + instrument + frequency
• mandolin-daily — simple, habit-linked

Avoid generic names like instrument-practice-coach (sounds like a tool, not a commitment).

Daily Reminder Example

Week 3, Day 15 of your 12-week plan

Today's tasks:
  • Introduce G major scale — 2 octaves
  • Alternate picking exercise, quarter = 80 BPM
  • Review "Angeline the Baker" — play through once clean

Session template (30 min):
  • Tune: 2 min
  • Posture/strap check: 1 min
  • G major scale drill: 8 min
  • Alternate picking: 8 min
  • Tune practice: 10 min
  • Record/review: 1 min

Focus tip: Keep your right-hand wrist loose —
tension creeps in during scale speed drills.

License

MIT