The Knobs

"Easy-mode isn't a switch. It's a mixing board."

Simplification Has Dimensions

'Make it easier' sounds like one operation, but it's really several independent knobs, each turning against musical context. Bonfire's simplification engine exposes them rather than collapsing them into a single 'easy' button, because different players are stuck on different axes:

Note density — drop to one note per beat, or chord tones only.
Rhythm — syncopation becomes on-beat; 16ths become quarters.
Position — a neck-spanning solo collapses into a single pentatonic box.
Chord voicing — barre chords become open shapes; 7ths/9ths become triads (capo transposition included).

A player whose problem is speed needs the rhythm knob; a player whose problem is stretch needs the position knob. One 'easy' setting can't serve both — so the engine keeps them separate and lets Pippa propose a starting mix.

The Scaffolding Ladder

On top of the per-axis knobs sits the move that turns simplification into practice: a scaffolding ladder. Lv1 is the bones (target notes only). Lv2 adds the passing tones back. Lv3 is the original. You climb one rung at a time, and each rung is a real, playable version — not a broken intermediate. Pair the ladder with a region loop and tempo-down, and you have the whole practice cycle: pick a hard bar, drop to Lv1 at 70% speed, loop it, climb to Lv2, bring the tempo up, repeat.

Why Knobs, Not a Single Slider

A single 'difficulty' slider would have to guess which axis you're stuck on and move all of them together — usually wrong. Independent knobs are honest about the fact that 'hard' is multi-dimensional. This is the same instinct as a real mixing board: you don't get one 'sound good' fader; you get EQ, gain, and pan because the problem has axes. Easy-mode is the same — a board, not a button.

Code

Simplification = a set of knobs, not one switch·python

from dataclasses import dataclass
from typing import Literal

@dataclass
class SimplifyKnobs:
    note_density: Literal["chord-tones", "one-per-beat", "all"]
    rhythm:       Literal["on-beat", "eighths", "original"]
    position:     Literal["one-box", "two-position", "full-neck"]
    voicing:      Literal["open", "triad", "original"]
    ladder_rung:  int   # 1 = bones, 2 = +passing, 3 = original

# Pippa proposes a starting mix from the song + your level;
# you turn individual knobs from there. No single 'easy' value.

Exercise

Take a passage that's currently too hard for you and name which single knob is the real blocker — density, rhythm, position, or voicing. Turn only that one knob down a notch in your head and ask: is it playable now? If yes, you've found that one axis was carrying all the difficulty.

Hint

Most 'too hard' passages are blocked by exactly one axis. Speed-blocked? Rhythm knob. Can't reach? Position knob. Too many notes? Density knob. Fix the blocker, leave the rest.