I’ve been playing music for most of my life, and I’ve never found a practice app that worked the way I actually practice. Most of them are either too simple to be useful, or expensive with a user experience so bad it gets in the way of actually practicing. I wanted something in between: something that tracks what I’m working on, shows me whether I’m actually putting in the time, and helps me run a focused session without fighting the interface.
So I built Musizen.
The core idea is straightforward: you organize your practice material by instrument, then by category (scales, repertoire, technique, whatever makes sense for how you work), then by individual items. When you sit down to practice, you pick an item and start a session. The app runs a timer, gives you a metronome with adjustable BPM, time signature, and subdivisions, and lets you make a recording if you want one.
After the session it logs the time. Over days and weeks that builds into a history you can actually look at: daily minutes, per-item progress, how much time you’re spending on each part of your practice. The progress tab gives you a real picture of where your time is going, not just a streak counter.
A few things I’m particularly happy with:
Sheet music. You can attach a PDF to any practice item and it opens right in the session. Flip to fullscreen and the metronome rides along in a ribbon at the bottom so you never have to leave the page to adjust tempo. Tap tempo is in there too.
Practice lists. Sometimes you don’t want to think about what to work on, you just want to run through a set list. You can build lists of items and run through them in order.
iCloud sync. Your instruments, categories, items, sessions, and recordings sync across your devices automatically via CloudKit. Start a session on your iPhone, review the recording on your iPad.
It runs locally. Everything is stored on-device in SQLite. No account required, no server to go down, no subscription.
Musizen is available on the App Store. I’m still actively developing it and there’s a lot more I want to add.
Unfortunately, it’s only available on iOS and MacOS currently. But hopefully I will be able to get an Android version going soon. If you have an Apple device, please check it out!
https://www.musizen.app/
Or go directly to the app store and grab it!