New app helps motivate music students to practice their lessons

Motivating students to practice their music lessons. Yes, there’s now an app for that.

It’s the latest tool designed to help music students learn faster and stay on track. The new app, “Cadenza,” was officially launched on Monday afternoon at Queen’s University.

“An original project was developed around a web site that already existed but wasn’t necessarily built for private studio music teachers, so this evolved from that core concept and was then customized for studio teaching purposes,” project manager Jodie Compeau said.

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Emma Saganowich, a grade 11 student at Holy Cross Secondary School in Kingston, played the piano and entertained those on hand.

Her input was used to help build the new app.

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“It’s so cool to be able to be involved in something this big,” Saganowich said. “It’s awesome because I’m so passionate about music, to be able to help make teaching easier and make it more fun for all students.”

The app was created by researchers in the Faculty of Education at Queen’s, in partnership with Concordia University and partners in Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Compeau says the app includes a digital planner, online lesson assignments, an interactive notebook and a media annotation feedback tool.

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Cadenza transforms the way that students and teachers interact with each other during the week, so it takes traditional studio lessons and allows for the teacher and the student to communicate with each other during the week if needed.

“Being able to have someone help you as you’re learning, someone who can guide you through your journey with piano is awesome,” Saganowich said.

Funding for Cadenza was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Canada Foundation for Innovation.