𝆑music-forte
Documentation

Music-Forte AI

The chat-driven assistant. One prompt, one mode, one conversation β€” the rest of the platform organises itself around what you're trying to do.

Four modes

Music-Forte AI runs in one of four modes at a time. The mode shapes which tools the assistant has, what domain knowledge it pulls from, and how it interprets ambiguous requests. You change mode rarely; we recommend picking the one that matches how you spend most of your time on the platform.

Guest
No syllabus context, open conversation. Best for trying things out before you sign in, or for casual questions about music in general.
Teacher
Loaded with the NCDC 2025 corpus and the UNEB Practical Music framework. Generates lesson plans, schemes of work, scenarios, rubric-anchored feedback, handouts, and slides. Topics auto-link to your context (e.g. T2 Triadic harmony, S5 Mbarara).
Student
Drill-shaped. Quizzes on intervals, cadences, chord qualities, sing-back, sol-fa dictation, sight-reading. Tracks your mastery per skill and your streak.
Expert
Music-generation tools and analysis at a composer's pace. Choral baroque, hymn SATB, folk monophonic, plus the full Inspector for voice-leading and harmonic analysis. No curriculum constraints; produces usable starting drafts.
Switching mode mid-conversation resets the active thread. Each mode has a different system prompt and tool whitelist; continuing a Guest thread in Teacher mode would silently change the rules. We surface a confirm sheet on mobile, and the existing thread stays saved (you can reopen it any time).

Conversations

Every interaction is a thread. Threads persist across devices and refreshes; you can name them, pin important ones, or archive ones you're done with. The sidebar (or the thread drawer on mobile) shows your recent threads, grouped by mode.

  • Start one β€” type into the composer at the bottom and send.
  • Resume one β€” open the sidebar/drawer and tap a thread title.
  • Pin a turn β€” tap the pin icon under any assistant reply you want easy access to. Pinned turns appear at the top of the sidebar, surfaced whenever this mode is active.
  • Copy a turn β€” tap copy under the reply.
  • Refine a turn β€” tap refine to ask for a follow-up edit ("shorter", "more concrete", etc.) anchored to the same artifact.

The composer

The composer is the bottom strip of the chat surface. It does more than text:

  • Type β€” natural language. Markdown is fine; the assistant will reply in kind.
  • Slash / β€” opens the slash palette. Type to filter; the curated commands are mode-specific (/lesson, /scenario, /quiz, /handout, etc.). Hitting return inserts the command template; you fill in the parameters.
  • Attach β€” opens the attach sheet. Music-Forte routes the file to the right tool: audio β†’ transcription, sheet-music photo β†’ OMR, PDF β†’ ingest, MusicXML β†’ editor.
  • Voice β€” opens the voice surface. Real waveform, large transcript type, confidence indicator. Tap-to-send commits the transcript to the composer; long-press to keep recording.
  • Stop β€” while a turn is streaming, the send button becomes a stop button. Useful when you want to interrupt a long generation that's going off-track.

Library

The Library is your collection of things you've made plus the curated corpora the platform ships:

  • Threads β€” every chat conversation is reachable here, filtered by mode.
  • Lessons β€” saved lesson plans. Most teachers save a lesson when it's ready to teach; the rubric L2 score is shown next to each.
  • Drills β€” drill attempts and mastery progress.
  • Study works β€” curated set works (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Acholi bwola, baakisimba, embaire interlocking patterns). Each work has a detail page with incipit, teaching points, and an "Open in FORTE" button that loads it into the editor.
  • Sight-reading passages β€” graded passages for UNEB Practical Music preparation. Each passage offers two flows: the UNEB cadence (30s preview + 4-beat lead-in + perform + review) and Follow mode (live score-following β€” see the Practice guide).

Memory

Music-Forte keeps a small set of facts about you so the assistant can give context-aware answers without you repeating yourself. Examples:

  • "Teaches S5 in Mbarara."
  • "Prefers solfΓ¨ge over numbers for melodic dictation."
  • "Working on a Mukasa hymn arrangement for choir."

Open the Memory drawer from the sidebar (desktop), the You tab (mobile), or the assistant's chip in the chat header (tablet). Each fact has:

  • Pin β€” the assistant treats it as a strong constraint; less likely to be retired automatically.
  • Edit β€” change the wording or scope.
  • Forget β€” remove the fact.

Memory is per-mode by default: Teacher facts don't leak into Student conversations. Some are global ("name is Aisha") and apply across modes.

Today (the briefing)

On mobile, Today is the home tab. On desktop and tablet, the briefing greets you when you open a fresh thread. It's a short list of what's actionable right now:

  • Urgent β€” "Your S5 lesson is in 2 hours and the handout for T7 isn't built yet." Tap to fix it.
  • Stat β€” a relevant number (this week's rubric average, your streak, this month's drill progress).
  • Hint β€” "Pick up where you left off β€” the Bbm chorale you started Friday is at bar 8."

Brand-new users see an honest empty state (no fake briefing items). Tap any quick-start tile to jump in.

Practice tab (mobile)

On mobile, the Practice tab is a launchpad: streak strip + per- skill drill tiles. Tap a tile and it sends a quiz prompt into the active conversation; the drill renders inline as an artifact. For the live score-following Practice (Follow) β€” open a piece in FORTE Notation or pick a sight-reading passage and tap "Follow mode".

Audio dock and Now Playing

When the assistant generates audio (an example chord, a composed melody, a rendered score), the audio dock peeks above the bottom navigation: title + waveform progress + play/pause. Tap to expand into Now Playing β€” a full-screen player with manuscript-paper "album art", a waveform scrubber, and an "Open in FORTE" button.

Account and settings

  • /profile β€” your activity overview, recent lessons, links to library and notation.
  • /account β€” settings sectioned into Profile, Security, Devices, Privacy, Danger. On mobile this is a list view that pushes into one section at a time.
  • /practice β€” your practice history. Timeline + per-piece grouping with up/down trend arrows.

Keyboard shortcuts (desktop)

  • ⌘K / Ctrl+K β€” command palette (FORTE Notation).
  • ⌘Enter / Ctrl+Enter β€” send the composer.
  • ⌘Z / Ctrl+Z β€” undo (in editor surfaces).
  • βŒ˜β‡§Z / Ctrl+Shift+Z β€” redo.
  • / at column 0 β€” open the slash palette.

Limits and rate-limiting

Music-Forte is credit-metered. Free users get an allocation that refreshes periodically; Pro plans (when offered) raise it. The composer hides per-call cost from you, but you'll see a gentle "slow down" pill if you hit the rate limit.

When things go wrong

  • The assistant says "degraded". A downstream AI service is responding slowly or not at all. We retry on a fallback path where possible. Wait a minute and try again.
  • Mic doesn't work. Check browser permissions for the site; some browsers block mic access on insecure (non-HTTPS) URLs. Music-Forte runs over HTTPS in production.
  • Streaming stops mid-reply. Hit refresh β€” the assistant's last persisted reply will be there. If a reply truncates regularly, the model may be hitting its max-tokens cap; refine your prompt.
  • Lost a draft. Drafts auto-save on every edit. Check /forte-drafts or the editor's recent drafts list. If still missing, email support.