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I don’t think it will surprise anyone on this site that when I am teaching I am focused on “the basics”, even with my most advanced students; frequently more so with my most advanced students. And to be fair, I think it is the part most of my students like the least about my teaching methods, and who can blame them? When I say basics, I do mean the basics… scales, intervals, messa di voce, anatomy isolation drills, and so on. It’s not really that they are incapable of singing basic intervals or scales beautifully or even that they struggle with beautiful crescendos. It is the unending quest for perfection in the building blocks of singing. I believe that the more you practice the fundamental skills of singing, every day, every way, in the rain, on beautiful days, the more artistic options are available to you to create beautiful moments. At this point, I don’t think it is likely that I’ll change my mind barring some incredible research. 

Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, my students are often enthralled with practicing other things; assuming they practice at all. I can’t blame them, singing songs is way more fun than singing exercises. However, it is still my job to get them to each their vegetables before dessert.

I had a conversation with one of my most advanced students the other day about his practice sessions. I noticed that he had not been practicing his intervals recently; despite my reminding him how important it is to do so. I got an answer that should not have surprised me, but it did. He told me that he just didn’t have time to practice his songs and his skills. I was taken aback, we were between shows and no current audition prep was underway. Conceptually this student understands the importance of fundamentals, there was simply an issue in prioritization. In his mind practicing his repertoire was more important than the basics, so when met with constrained practice time he prioritized just that.

For transparency, I normally teach older teens and adults. The amount of practice time a student has can vary wildly from week to week so I don’t like being extremely prescriptive with a student's practice. Instead, I give general guidance on the types of things that I would like them to practice during the week. In hindsight, I have not provided enough education on how and what to practice and so I have set out to correct this.

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Enter Practice Apps

I knew from the start my goal was to find an app that would check off a few boxes. It needed to:

1. Be Easy to Use
2. Work on the Web, iOS, & Android
3. Be Free for My Students
4. Enable Communication Between Lessons

I think I have found that with Practice Space.

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Easy to Use

Ease of use is number one on my list. If it is complicated students will not use it. Practice Space is pretty simple with a big green start button on the home page for students to use. Upon clicking it they are presented with the assignments that I have entered for them after their lesson. This helps me guide their practice time throughout the week.

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Works on the Web, iOS, & Android

A non-negotiable for me. I am an Apple user myself but it is significantly easier to manage my students, their lessons, and their assignments from a web browser than my phone. In contrast, it is much easier for students to practice from their mobile devices. Practice Space checks off all of those boxes.

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Be Free for My Students

This is a personal preference. I charge a premium for lessons so I don’t want there to be “extra” fees for my students. At $9.99 a month for unlimited students Practice Space is an affordable add-on for my teaching stack. And should I desire it, additional teachers can be added for $3.95 a month. There is also an unlimited option for $99 a month should you have a lot of teachers.

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Enable Communication Between Lessons

As I mentioned before I work primarily with teens and adults. While there is nothing wrong with some communication between teenage students and a teacher with parental consent, keeping that communication in a safe and easily monitored space is important. Practice Space allows for two way communication between teachers and students. You can use this if a student has a question about their assignments or they can provide videos of an issue they are having.

I like the video option, it allows students to send videos of moments a student has a question of. To protect my time I do commit to reviewing a students messages before their next lesson; however, I may not reply to them in the app. You may with your students prefer to be more or less available.

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Bonus: Gamification

While I am listing this as a bonus, it actually is one of the main reasons that I am using Practice Space. Practice space awards gems or points for students who log their practice. Additional points can be won by topping the studio leaderboard and for a small selection of other things. I do wish you could manually award gems to students, but currently that does not seem to be an option.

These Gems can be redeemed for in app things like avatars and backgrounds. Additionally, you can set up your own rewards. Think free sheet music, free lesson, stickers, ice cream cone, or really whatever makes sense to you and your students. Just try and make the rewards exciting and achievable. An iPad would be awesome but the 100,000 gems or so you’d probably want to make it cost not so much.

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In conclusion

Students that practice regularly progress faster, and students that consistently follow a teachers guidance during practice will progress even faster. Progressing faster is certainly what is best for our students. But having students that are doing great work is also good for the business side of our studios. Using a tool like Practice Space can help us help our students. I highly recommend checking out the 30 day free trial and seeing if Practice Space or any other practice tracking app can make a great addition to your teaching.

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