ARTFORM
Artform · For teachers

For teachers

Artform Studio is six practice rooms and a weekly plan you can write for a student from your own account. This page is the whole of how that works. Two minutes to read, about five to set up.

Open Artform Studio Open your Account page
Free for every learner, forever. No card, nothing to install, and it works signed out if you only want a look first.
Artform is already open in the tab behind this one, on the page this describes. This opens it here as well, on the same page.

Setting up, in three steps

1

Make an account, then say that you teach

Open the app and go to Profile, then Account. Sign in with your email address. There is no password: the app sends you a code. At the foot of that same page, turn on I teach.

That switch is all there is to it. It adds a Students room to your sidebar and changes nothing else, so your own practice, streak and week stay exactly where they were. A teacher who practises is still a learner here.

2

Ask your student to read you their code

On their own device your student opens Profile, then This week, and finds Have a teacher? Read them this code. They read you the eight characters out loud in a lesson, and you type them into your Students room.

It only works this way round. You cannot look a student up, search for them by name, or add somebody who has not handed you their code. Either of you can end the link later, from your own page.

3

Set their week, and see whether they did it

Their name now appears in your Students room. Open it and write three to five numbered things for the week: any level, scale, piece or flashcard set in the app, picked from a list rather than typed out. It reaches their This week page within seconds.

After the lesson the same page tells you whether they turned up, how often, how far they got, and which chords keep escaping them. That last list is usually the one worth reading first.

What your students get

Everything counts towards one daily goal, so a student who does three minutes in any room has done their day. That, rather than a points total, is what the streak measures.

The sheet music library

The room worth showing a colleague. 1,120 out-of-copyright pieces sorted by composer, from 136 Chopin to 105 Bach down to Gottschalk and Stephen Foster, every one playable in the browser and printable. You can also drop in a PDF, a MusicXML file, or an export from MuseScore, Sibelius, Finale or Dorico, and read it with the same tools: tempo, looping, and tap any symbol you do not recognise to ask what it is.

Open the library

Questions I get asked

Does it cost anything?

Not today, and the rooms never. Every practice room, every level and every piece is free for anybody learning here, with no card and no limit, and that promise is in writing at jamescarterpiano.com/promise. Practising with a teacher, meaning the register, setting a week and seeing whether it was done, is in beta and free while it is. I would rather say plainly that it may carry a price when it leaves beta, met by the family or by you inside your fees, than let anyone find out later. Whatever happens, nothing inside a room ever sits behind a payment, and your students keep all five, and everything they have earned, whether they practise with you or on their own.

Do my students need a keyboard?

No. Every exercise can be played on the piano drawn on the screen, with a mouse or a finger, and it is scored exactly the same way. A MIDI keyboard plugged into a computer running Chrome or Edge plays straight in. On an iPad or iPhone, MIDI does not work in any browser, because Apple does not allow it, so a student at a real piano uses Acoustic mode and marks their own work.

What can I actually see about a student?

A handful of numbers, and only for a student who gave you their code: whether they have practised, how many days running, how far through each subject they are, and which exercises they keep missing. Not their address, not a recording, not anything they have written. The list is fixed in the database rather than a setting anybody can widen by accident.

Is there anything to install?

No. It runs in a browser. On a phone or tablet you can add it to the home screen, where it opens full screen and keeps working with the wifi down. Worth doing before a lesson in a room with bad signal.

Can I use the sheet music with a whole class?

Yes. The library holds 1,120 out-of-copyright pieces, Bach through Joplin, all playable and printable, and you can drop in a PDF or an export from MuseScore, Sibelius, Finale or Dorico and read it in the same reader.

Anything else

Write to me. I built every room in here and I am still teaching in them, so if something is wrong, missing, or would be better a different way for your students, I would rather hear it than not. There is a Leave feedback door in the More menu of every screen, and it comes straight to me.

Privacy · Terms · James Carter