# What Should the Best Practice Coaching Be Like?

Written by Javen Fang, CEO of Violy

> Historical context: This article was published on December 7, 2020. Its launch announcement, prices, and payment arrangements describe Violy's China service at that time.

At the time of this announcement, Violy had introduced its own live online practice coaching in China, described as moderately priced and payable one session at a time.

![](https://static.lianmuse.com/image/blog/0d52575be95fe2d2d46ab5f97314ff60.png)

## 1

As a new generation of parents, when our children start kindergarten, we begin to think:

My child should not grow up as I did, knowing little beyond what I learned by rote from textbooks. My child should have broader knowledge and develop some abilities in the arts or sports. My child should lead a richer, more colorful life.

And so, all kinds of extracurricular classes are flourishing. None of them are particularly cheap, either.

Most other extracurricular activities are fairly straightforward: you take your child to a class. But for parents who have ventured into music education, the experience is much harder to put into words.

At first, most parents do not realize how much music study will demand of them. Only after they get started do they discover just how deep that commitment goes.

You think a teacher is all you need for a child to learn music. Gradually, however, you realize:

**Learning is three parts instruction and seven parts practice. Without practice, even the best teacher cannot teach a child to play well.**

Children have to practice repeatedly, every day. They must keep overcoming difficulties and climbing uphill. Psychologically, intellectually, and physically, it is an enormous challenge.

The challenge does not fall on children alone. Parents who have entered the world of music education face an unavoidable question: how to support and guide their child's practice.

That saying about three parts instruction and seven parts practice actually has a second half: the remaining ninety points depend on practice support.

Parents are all wondering how to handle this so that their child's musical learning can go a little better, last a little longer, and feel a little less painful.

## 2

I am one of those parents, too: the parent of a child learning an instrument.

My answer to the question of how to support practice was the Violy app.

The starting point for this app was that most parents, like me, cannot read staff notation. **Is the child making mistakes in pitch or rhythm while practicing? If so, can those mistakes be corrected promptly?**

Parents who do not understand music cannot resolve these issues themselves. There should be a tool that can help.

The app needed to act like a human practice coach, clearly identifying mistakes after a child finished playing.

So it needed a degree of intelligence. That is what I mean by “intelligent practice coaching.”

**At the time, we described Violy as the world's first truly intelligent practice-coaching app.**

Children are young, so expecting them to use the app entirely on their own is neither realistic nor reasonable.

The app's main purpose **is to serve as a supporting tool for parents, helping those who do not understand music address the technical issues that arise while supporting their child's practice.**

## 3

Just as it helped me, the Violy app has helped many other parents **resolve basic technical issues during practice.**

However, through my own experience supporting practice and my conversations with many parents, I have found that the app's intelligent practice coaching is useful, but **has limitations**.

Supporting practice requires a great deal of time, energy, and patience.

Many parents therefore find it quite difficult. With their own limited understanding of music, the help they can offer their children is still not always enough.

Sometimes a child does not practice as the teacher instructed. Even if a parent tries to correct the child or shows them a video recorded during the lesson, the results can be limited.

That led me to a new idea: if a professional teacher could guide about two of a child's six weekly practice sessions, perhaps that would better support the child's learning.

For one thing, a practice coach can offer more professional guidance. For another, having a different person guide practice feels fresh to a child, and children will listen to a teacher.

Taken together, I was convinced these advantages would make practice much more effective.

Since evenings are the only available time for coached practice on weekdays, the arrangement should be easy to access, ideally online.

**The purpose of practice coaching is to ensure that children practice correctly, following the instructions of their main instrumental teacher.**

It follows that practice coaching should ideally be arranged by the main teacher. That teacher's supervision and guidance are needed to ensure the quality of the coaching and keep it on track.

## 4

The Violy team's latest achievement is the launch of an online practice-coaching feature.

On one level, this article is my personal reconsideration of practice support as the parent of a child learning an instrument.

On another, it is also our official announcement: **Violy's online practice-coaching service has launched!**

But our online practice coaching is different from what people may already know under that name.

Violy's service differs substantially from the online practice-coaching platforms people have seen before.

The central difference is that Violy's online practice coaching **requires the main teacher to participate: to arrange, guide, and supervise the coaching.**

We believe that only with the main teacher's involvement can online practice coaching achieve the best results, keep a child's practice on the right path, and help the child get the most out of every practice session.

**For children, time is the most precious resource.**

Once we have chosen our child's main music teacher, we should trust that teacher's professional judgment about learning music, including their ability to make the best arrangements and coordinate the child's learning.

At the time of writing, Violy's online practice coaching had been running on a trial basis for several weeks. Parents' responses had been very positive, and they were highly satisfied with the coaching results.

**The sessions also offered very good value, with beginner sessions priced as low as RMB 50.**

Even more importantly:

### Pay for One Session at a Time!

Once the time for a session is confirmed, simply book and pay for it in advance.

As parents, we have all had experience with one of the biggest pitfalls of extracurricular classes: “promotional deals.”

You buy as many as 100–200 sessions at once, only to find that you usually cannot finish them all. Later, you may end up attending simply to use up the sessions you bought.

That wastes not only money but, even more importantly, a child's time. In my experience, most platforms would not allow refunds, either.

Paying for one session at a time greatly reduces the costs involved in learning and choosing a service.

## 5

To sum up:

Previously, I tried to use an app to help parents resolve the basic technical issues they encounter when supporting practice.

Now, the aim is to bring in professional practice coaches who can provide an appropriate amount of online support for parents and better address issues that require musical expertise.

Combining intelligent tools with human coaching makes practice support more varied and comprehensive.

But even that is still not enough!

In a child's education, tools and outside expertise should only ever be external support.

Parents cannot hand over their own responsibility for supporting practice.

Above all, supporting practice means being there for your child.

What children need most is companionship, encouragement, and appreciation.

It is fine if we parents do not understand music or lack professional expertise. But our emotional support must not be absent. It is also what our children need most.

In the past, when intelligent practice-coaching apps did not exist and it was difficult to find a practice coach, many parents still fulfilled this role through their own perseverance and love.

So what matters most is a parent's presence. Children themselves have some ability to solve technical problems.

Now, with better app tools, convenient online practice coaching, and our patient emotional support as parents, I believe our children's musical learning can go more smoothly and bring them more joy.

Let me share my own experience. A few years ago, when my daughter was in primary school, I developed the app to help me solve the basic technical problems that had previously left me feeling helpless.

But I did not do a good job of providing emotional support.

Now that my son is learning piano, I pay more attention to emotional support. Supporting his practice is going much more smoothly than before, too.

I still need to keep learning and improving. In Violy's WeChat group for parents and teachers, many parents do this much better than I do.