We want to give a special shout-out to long-time friends of Classical Guitar magazine Christopher Mallett and Robert Miller who, aside from founding and teaching at the top-notch California Conservatory of Music in the San Francisco Bay Area and making exquisite guitar music together, teamed up to develop a very cool app called Practice Space, which is “a platform that helps music teachers engage their students in person, virtually, and in the practice room,” according to a press release. We know that a lot of you are teachers (while others of you are students), so perhaps this could help you!
The Practice Space description goes on to note, “With Practice Space, teachers can make great digital assignments for their students with notes, video demonstrations, audio recordings, PDFs and other attachments. The easy-to-use platform comes with a media and assignment library, so teachers can use content with students again and again, and get clear insight into how much students are practicing and what they are working on. Students get a clear vision of what to practice every session, and also get access to in-app motivators like practice streaks, the teacher’s studio’s leaderboard, and avatars and backgrounds to dress up their app! They also can earn in-app prizes, and Practice Space’s great customizable ‘In-Studio Rewards’ feature lets them earn real awards that they can get at their lesson.”
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According to Robert Miller, “Practice Space co-founder Christopher Mallett and I were inspired by our teacher-mentor to create ‘leader boards’ for our students to encourage practice. Back in the day, we did that on paper. Now our students open the Practice Space app, get their lesson assignments, feedback from their teachers, and practice a lot more. We are sharing a tried-and-true solution to motivate instrumental and vocal students to practice more, and more effectively —and it’s fun!” —Blair Jackson