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“MetaPractice prioritizes goals, not tasks, setting it apart from other teaching apps.”
My name is Chad Twedt, and I am the designer of MetaPractice. I am a private piano instructor, an adjudicator (most recently the southwest US divisionals of the MTNA Competition in 2020 and again in 2023 – junior, senior and collegiate divisions), an accomplished pianist, a clinician (presented on rubato, metacognition, adjudication, creativity, and many other topics to local and state MTNA chapters) and a composer (winner of 2005 Nevada Arts Council Fellowship Grant for composing).
In 2012, I would have told you, “Never in a million years would I ever, EVER want to make an app.” In fact, I felt that most of the music apps available didn’t do anything to improve the quality of my teaching or the quality of students’ practicing. By 2014, my attitude morphed into, “I have no choice. I must make an app.” How in the world could this have possibly happened?
When my family and I moved from Reno, NV to Pittsburgh, PA, I went from having 45 piano students to zero students. I took this as an opportunity to do a deep dive into metacognition, reading every article and study I could get my hands on. I was looking for ideas and inspiration on how to solve what I felt was the absolute biggest problem in music instruction: how to get students to practice efficiently.
Practice efficiency had already been my obsession since my teaching career began in 1998. In fact, it didn’t take me long (2002) to realize that the traditions of music teaching already placed students at a disadvantage when compared to students in academic classrooms: private music instructors typically did not mark things “wrong” in the student’s notebook or deliver tangible “grades” or “scores” each week that reflected practice quality. This is when I started notating incomplete goals in red. Each of these red “trouble goals” degraded the student’s score that week, especially if the trouble goals were repeated multiple weeks in a row.
My research into metacognition validated this style of teaching, as I encountered repeatedly the consistent theme that accurate, specific and constant feedback is critical for success in any endeavor. Unfortunately, the other big theme I encountered also validated the fact that even when students are taught how to practice efficiently in the lesson, most students of all ages still fell into the temptation of pleasure seeking at the piano when they should be isolating and drilling instead. This is truly The Big Problem in musical study. But the problems don’t end there. If you want to read a complete account of metacognition-related problems as detailed in my research, see this article I wrote in April 2022.
I reimagined my teaching to incorporate a bunch of laminated pages on the walls representing levels, allowing students to choose “avatar” stickers that would level up according to completed goals. This was already hugely successful, but I still felt limited. Since teachers can’t be at their students’ side every day they practice, the only solution I could see to The Big Problem was to design an app that helps students practice their teacher-assigned goals efficiently while they practice, and that’s when MetaPractice was conceived. Now that my own students have been using it, I regularly get comments from both students and parents about how MetaPractice has helped not only in time spent, but also in organizing practice and making practicing more efficient.
There are two important things I want everyone to know about MetaPractice. Or perhaps these are two important things about the person designing MetaPractice.
First, MetaPractice is already an incredibly complex piece of software. But it is in its infancy compared to what it will be. In my mind, currently it’s only on version “1” even with all its features, and I have visions for this app with major new features that would take it through to version “10” and beyond. Many of these features are features that I promise teachers want, but they don’t know they want yet.
Second, to make this happen as quickly as possible, I do not plan to draw a dime of money from MetaPractice’s revenue until far into the future. All revenue is being reinvested into creating new features. My first goal is to get enough subscribers so that the app is self-sustaining with a constant part-time coder. The next goal will be to move the coder to full time. MetaPractice has required exceptional talent in coding, and the coding has not been cheap. Please think about all of the music teachers, dance instructors, tennis instructors, personal trainers, etc. who might be interested in MetaPractice, and tell them about MetaPractice!
In September 2023, a parent (who himself has a piano background) told me that his son had studied with exceptional teachers in Utah before they moved to Nevada, and here in Reno, his son studied with another reputable teacher here before studying with me. He said, “Hands down, you are the best he’s had, and it’s because of the system you use in your teaching, including MetaPractice.” He described how my lessons focus on very specific goals in pieces, whether it be pedaling here, fingering there, or phrase tapering over there. All of these tiny things get notated in the goalbook, and students are held accountable to all these little goals. And for that matter, I am held accountable to them too, because knowing that I must eventually evaluate every goal I assign forces me to make sure every goal is both specific and achievable. MetaPractice is the only truly goal-oriented app out there, complete with goal types, evaluation scoring for critical feedback, and a customized practice experience for each student. All other apps for teachers are really just assignment-oriented, not goal oriented.
If you want to learn more about the creator of MetaPractice, here are links to my company as well as personal sites:
LLC company site for this app, sheet music, recordings, and a scale/arpeggio fingering card
Teaching website
Artist website
Cerebroom, my music blog