Tool - PracticeFirst
One of my proudest accomplishments at MusicFirst was launching PracticeFirst back in 2015. Simply put, the assessment algorithm is absolutely incredible - WAY better than our main competitor. Powered by Match My Sound, the algorithm matches the audio recording of the student performance with a reference audio recording - literally matching the sounds together. Any discrepancies trigger various graphic feedback colors: red (wrong note), green (correct note) and yellow (something not quite right). We were the first assessment tool to introduce yellow and the reason we included it is because ANY music teacher will tell you that assessing a student performance is never as simple as right or wrong. There are many nuances, including tone, intonation, tempo variation, breathing, posture, embouchure, etc. that can impact the assessment score. After we introduced yellow, what I lovingly nicknamed “meh”, our main competitor quickly imitated us. Always nice to get that type of confirmation. What I absolutely love about our feedback is that we also include all of the hues of colors in between. Simply coloring a note head is not enough feedback in my opinion. Students need to know exactly what they did wrong (and right).
When we first launched PracticeFirst we admittedly didn’t have a lot of content for music educators to assign. The reason for this was we asked LOTS of music teachers what they wanted from MusicFirst, and they all said an affordable assessment alternative to the market leader at the time. We asked if sacrificing content to get that affordable price was an option, and all said yes. Once we launched it, many of those same people asked, where is the content? Since 2015, we have steadily increased the amount of content available to music educators and their students. We started with about 400 pieces of music, and a small selection of method books. Today, we have over 24,000 assessable pieces of music in PracticeFirst, including a wide variety of method books for band, strings, and chorus, and thousands of repertoire titles as well. I am so incredibly proud of the work that our Director of Content, Marjorie LoPresti, and her team have done over the last year to get us to where we are today. We now work with over 25 different publishers, and that list is growing on a monthly basis.
Other powerful features of this software include:
Works on PHONES
Memorization mode (music disappears once the students hit record)
Video submissions
Create your own exercises with a variety of file formats, including audio only
Sight reading mode
Easily adjustable algorithm to allow younger performers to have more leeway with scoring
Mouse over the feedback display to see exactly what you did wrong
Simple and Advanced feedback
PracticeFirst has grown exponentially over the last few years, and we are poised to continue - especially with all of our new repertoire. I urge you to give it a shot and see how it stacks up against other products. You can sign up for a free 30-day trial right HERE. Let me know what you think!