MusicFirst and MatchmySound Release PracticeFirst Online Practice and Assessment Tool

PracticeFirst, the new online practice and assessment tool from MusicFirst and MatchmySound is now available.

MusicFirst and MatchmySound™ Partner to Introduce PracticeFirst™, an Innovative, New Online Practice and Assessment Tool

New York, NY, April 24, 2015 – MusicFirst announces an exciting partnership with MatchmySound™ to create PracticeFirst™, an affordable, online practice and assessment tool offering innovative features. Accessible from any internet-enabled device, PracticeFirst allows students to practice anytime, anywhere, with instant feedback and flexibility that has never been seen before.

Perfect for band, orchestral and choral practice, PracticeFirst, powered by MatchmySound technology, gives teachers easy-to-use tools for creating assignments that are broad or individualized to each student. Assessment and feedback are instantaneous.

Students can practice any instrument, including voice, using PracticeFirst’s web-based, easy-to-use interface. Band instruments, orchestral, choral practice, even polyphonic instruments like guitar and piano can all take advantage of PracticeFirst’s intuitive lessons and feedback features.
Not only does PracticeFirst, powered by MatchmySound technology, respond with pitch and rhythmic corrections, it can also judge tonal quality. PracticeFirst enables student musicians to become more accurate and more musical.

“In all of my years in music education, I have never been so excited about a new technology as I have about PracticeFirst,” comments Dr. Jim Frankel, Director of MusicFirst. “We are so excited to partner with MatchmySound. It is truly a revolutionary technology and I know that finally music educators have an easy, customizable, affordable way to assess ALL of their performance ensemble students. This will truly change the way we assess our students.”

“We are very excited to be part of this partnership, because we believe the MusicFirst online classroom is an innovative and affordable platform. It’s also an excellent fit for the MatchmySound assessment and feedback technology,” says MatchmySound Chief Technology Officer Margus Niitsoo. MatchmySound Chief Information Officer Kristo Kao adds, “MusicFirst is a great solution for music educators and their students. It provides the necessary tools while addressing the financial constraints that teachers and schools find themselves working within.”

PracticeFirst comes with a library of useful practice content for students of all levels, plus teachers can upload their own exercises – an exclusive feature only found with PracticeFirst. Additional content from top education curriculum publishers will be available as an add-on purchase that can be incorporated into the PracticeFirst library.

As students practice, they can play or sing along with included accompaniments, and a metronome feature is integrated into the lessons. Student assignments can be recorded online and teachers can easily review them whenever they wish.

PracticeFirst is exclusively available through the MusicFirst online classroom and is fully integrated in the classroom’s gradebook, scheduling, portfolio-building and other features.

Completely web-based, PracticeFirst, powered by MatchmySound technology, does not require any additional software to be purchased or downloaded onto any device. Students and teachers simply log in and use it anytime, anywhere. Teachers can track assignments and progress, and assessment tools are built right in.

Subscriptions to the MusicFirst online classroom, including PracticeFirst, start at only $6 per user per year. PracticeFirst will be available August 1, 2015. To find out more go to <www.musicfirst.com/practicefirst<https://t.e2ma.net/click/oa8pdc/0v85q9/o6c3nl>.

PracticeFirst key features include:

• Web-based – no software required
• Very affordable and tailored for students of all levels
• Comes with top content AND you can generate your own
• Judges tone as well as rhythmic and pitch accuracy
• First time ever – works for polyphonic instruments like piano and guitar
• Finally a practice and assessment tool perfect for choral student