What you are training
In-ear monitors isolate the musician from the room, which solves feedback and stage volume and creates a new set of problems. With no room in their ears, a singer loses the sense of space and starts pushing; without ambience mics they cannot hear the crowd; a mix that is fine in a wedge sounds cramped and fatiguing in an ear. Stereo placement, a touch of reverb, and ambient mics become essential rather than optional. This drill gives you an in-ear request and a set of sends, including ambience and effects, and asks you to build the mix the musician can perform on for two hours. Five rounds cover a singer, a drummer, and a full band, with the scoring explaining why the choices that work on wedges fail on ears.
After this drill, the plan: The daily plan pairs this with stereo image and ambience drills, the two things every first in-ear mix gets wrong.