If you have young children who have just finished up their school year, there is probably a good chance that you have spent some time this past week emptying out their backpacks. And in amongst juice-stained homework planners, cookie crumbs, and fruit flies, you may have possibly stumbled across their writing journals.
I love reading Lexi’s journal. Not only is it a funny sneak peak into the mind of our goofy little girl, but it is also an excellent visual representation of her academic progress. By flipping through her journal pages you can actually see her progress in action.
Nothing is more rewarding to parents, and beneficial to teachers, than an effective representation of student progress… and, after reading today’s post, piano teachers will be able to tap into this same wealth of information…
Using Audio Recordings To Track Piano Student Progress
Journals are great for tracking progress in language arts because writing is visual. But piano progress is best represented by sound.
Sure, piano teachers can take copious notes for themselves about a student’s progress, but to adapt an old adage… “A sound is worth a thousand words.”
Enter DropVox…
DropVox is an an audio recording app for your iPhone that automatically uploads recordings to your Dropbox account. If you are not using DropBox… you should… it’s free.
Instead of wasting valuable lesson time writing notes and reminders for yourself, click on the app, hit record, introduce the student’s name and the piece they are working on (along with anything else you wish to say) and then let your student play away.
And that’s it! Do this each and every lesson and you will literally be able to hear progress in action.
How to Use The Audio Recordings
The audio recordings you collect each lesson are incredibly valuable and are great for the following:
1. Monitoring weekly progress
At the beginning of a piano lesson, you and your student can listen to the previous week’s audio recording and discuss things that were great and things that needed work. You can then have your student play the piece to see what elements of the piece have improved and what still needs work. In addition, you will very likely find out how much practice happened in the previous week 😉
2. Planning for the future
With audio recordings, your lesson planning will be a snap. By taking a few minutes at the end of every teaching day to review your recordings, you can quickly identify the focus for the following week’s lesson. And by identifying overall focus for the lesson you can also select appropriate games, activities and repertoire to reinforce the focus.
3. Sharing Success With Students and Parents
Nothing is more motivating for piano students and their parents than progress. Audio recordings are the perfect tool to say, “Look how far you have come!” And when parents have an aural representation of progress they will be comfortable knowing that their investment of time (and money) was well worth it!
“Sound” Like A Plan?
So, if you can somehow pull yourself away from the beaches and barbecues this summer (if only for a few moments), experiment a little with DropVox and Dropbox so you are ready to hit record when a new year of teaching begins.
And, if you already use audio recordings in your studio to track piano student progress, please share in the comments below any programs or tools that you find particularly helpful and easy to use.
I started recording my students last year, but I have just been using the voice memo on my phone. Dropbox & Dropvox is a great idea! Thanks for sharing.
Hi Abbi – I used to use the voice memo too – but it started taking up a lot of memory on my phone! This was a good solution for me 🙂
I will definitely experiment with DropVox this week! I have been using the QuickVoice app for audio recording, especially when playing duets with my students. Another great app is Practice+. It features a metronome, tuner and audio recorder. The only problem I have encountered with both these apps is that when emailing audios for the parents to enjoy, they cannot open the recording. That is disappointing. Hopefully, using DropVox will avoid future disappointments. Thank you for sharing! 🙂
I found a fix for sending Practise Plus! I teach voice as well, so recording accompaniments is something I do regularly onto the students phones/ipods/pads. Record in Practise Plus, then send to Evernote- works like a charm. Very fast!
Swan, I’ve just downloaded Practice + and Evernote (I also record accompaniments). I haven’t had a chance to explore them yet but is it easy to send to Evernote and then out to students?
I just use the free app Voice Recorder on my iPad – I still write notes (mostly unread!) but I have been sending student / teacher duet performances home via email. Along with those, I usually send special requests for practice improvements and progress reports.
Dropbox is only free for a specific amount of space.
I use Smart Voice Recorder for android and save to my Google Drive student files.
This is a good reminder to do it more though. My app makes it SI easy to share with parents and students via email or text.
Hi Colleen – Yes DropBox gives 2GB free (which is quite a bit), and then their monthly plans are super reasonable when it comes to price per memory they give you. It was worth it to me to avoid filling my phone with audio files plus the security in knowing I won’t lose data that’s uploaded to DropBox (we use it for everything). Thanks for sharing your solution!
I’ve been using my iPad to send video recordings home with students to help them practice, but this is a great idea with Dropvox. I’ll definitely give it a try. Thanks
This arrived just a few weeks after I decided to use the audio/video recording facility on my iPad app, Moosic Studio. I think it is there really to record performances but at the end of each lesson, I tap on my student’s name, scroll down to recordings and start a new audio recording (I’ve not found a use for the video recording facility yet). I greet the student, describe what happened in the lesson and what I have taught them and then lay out how I’d like them to develop this during the week. When I’ve finished recording, there is a button where I can choose to send it to the parents, or, in the case of older kids, to the students themselves.
My tiny pupils appreciate it because they can’t read very easily, especially handwriting. They also gain from the fact that I’m sitting next to a piano and can demonstrate musical examples to them. My older pupils like the new arrangement tool because they are just more geared up to listening rather than reading. Parents seem to like it as well because they are in a better position to be able to guide their children during the week. I like it, because I have a copy of the recording from last week and I can carry on with a fresh memory as though there hasn’t been a week’s gap. If I need to save space I can safely discard these recordings: they are all attached to emails I can see in the Mail app on my computer.
I could never go back to all that frantic scribbling – except where I have some theory to explain. I think that’s too visual to describe aurally and I’d need to have to go back to writing (and drawing) for that only. For most lessons, though, if I record in front of the child it also means they have listened to it all summarised one more time while I’m recording, rather than having to sit in silence while I struggle to sum up the lesson on paper. If I don’t get it done during the lesson I can still do it at the end of my sessions because I’m emailing it. Many were the times when we reached the end of a lesson and I realised I hadn’t written anything in the book which they were about to take home – or which they had forgotten to bring to the lesson in the first place. This has revolutionised my communications!