Make Music Count

I created Make Music Count a math app taught through playing the piano. In our lessons students solve real math equations where the answers are piano notes to immediately play popular songs on the piano. We use music as a reward for correct math answers. 

We are solving the problem of math phobia that keeps students from reaching their full educational potential. Once this solution is scaled globally we will see a decrease in the achievement gap in the educational system. Secondly students will have equal opportunity at success in math. Then lastly Make Music Count will be a spark to lead to other creative methods to reach children.

The problem we are solving is that there exist a math phobia that keeps students from reaching their full educational potential. US Department of Education released the results from the 2017 National assessment of educational progress, and only 33 percent of eight graders tested proficient in math at grade level. American math scores on the PISA, which is given once every three years, declined in both 2012 and 2015. The problem, Andreas Schleicher, director of education and skills at the OECD agrees, is with the way math is taught in the United States. 63 out of 64 educational systems reported that increased levels of math anxiety produced lower levels of math performance.

We are looking to eliminate math phobia before it even has a chance to plant its seed in the minds of children. We want to equip students with the confidence to learn any subject before they enter the school system because it seems that math is taught to be feared. This creates a cycle of educational insecurity that is extremely hard to remove.

We are serving all communities and cultures because we are using two universal languages, math and music. However I believe that the communities that will benefit the most from this solution are the minority and poverty areas. This is because Make Music Count is the first solution to purposely create culturally relevant lessons. A major issue in the educational system is that lessons are not taught to directly engage the students they serve. If I'm a student in the hood and I read a word problem that references a whole foods, I'm stuck on the fact that I don't know what that is instead of being able to work on the math problem. We at Make Music Count understand the importance of culturally relevant lessons that can meet students where they are and give them a reason to be engaged. 

Make Music Count prides itself on being culturally relevant and when we partner with school systems we connect with the teachers and students to learn their favorite songs. Providing a culturally relevant solution addresses all of the major needs of a school system. Engagement increases, behavior problems decrease, resulting in math performance increases. 

My solution is Make Music Count, an app that teaches math lessons through playing the piano. What I created was a way to redefine every musical definition as a math definition. In music there are movements between piano keys called half steps. An example of a half step is moving from C to C# (C Sharp). Instead of saying the musical term i rewrote the expression as a math equation. C + 1/2 = C#. We are now looking at the piano as a number line instead of a musical instrument. 

Understanding Half Steps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STiswya2v9Y&t=5s

This foundation of viewing the piano as a number line allows us to use the method to learn melodies of popular songs. This is the engaging piece that gets students excited. Now they can immediately learn their favorite songs on the piano through direct math application. 

Our promotional video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5Md_BGTTTg

Here's an example! Baby shark by adding fractions and whole numbers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTkrB21iCmY

Higher mathematics

Once the foundation is set with the number line we are able to teach higher levels of mathematics. We currently offer lessons on fractions, times tables, division, algebra, graphing, and precalculus. 

Heres an example of how algebra works.

Substituting variables - Smile by Lil Duval

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVMCqkHt6Lk

Technology incorporation

Make Music Count is an app available for any apple and android device. It is also available s a web version for usage on laptops. We wanted to make sure that our solution is available for 1 to 1 usage throughout a school district as a supplemental resource during the day or as an enrichment for after school programs. 

We also provide technical support for any school that purchases 150 licenses and professional development for teachers. There's a common misconception that you need to be a pianist to teach this to students. That is false because the direct application allows you to become a pianist. So we provide training to teachers to be comfortable offering this during class.

This is a brand new way to apply math but we are seeing more cases of students not performing in math due to phobia and lack of cultural relevancy. We have seen incredible results thus far from increasing test scores 28%, to decrease in behavior problems, increases in math confidence and improvement in students with special needs. Once scaled Make Music Count will have tremendous positive impact globally that will close the achievement gap and provide equal opportunities to success in education. 

We are innovative because we are the first company to create a method where math equations can derive musical notes to directly play an instrument. Its especially innovative because users can play the piano without having any previous music theory knowledge.

There are no apps out like our solution. there are no math curricula like our solution. Others have combined math and music before but not through a direct method of math application like Make Music Count.

In the app you literally answer math equations by pressing piano notes. That's never been done before. 

The solution was created as an app that works on all apple and android products. It was created for supplemental use for school districts and for home usage since the app is available directly from the app store. 

We created the app after 6 years as a physical class offered to schools as an enrichment. The app was needed so that we could scale to all school districts globally and be used during anytime of the day.

Make Music Count address the problem because of our incorporation of music to teach our math lessons. Children 0 - 5 love music, it has a magical and healing power to it that even we don't understand as adults. But what Make Music Count has done was take the love of music and used it as a result for math understanding. Our results have been incredible so far from increasing math scores, to decreasing behavior problems. We currently teach starting with 3rd graders but we are eager to tailor our method to work with children who are 0 -5 years old. We are reaching children in a brand new way and are already solving a great problem with an older age range and students with special needs. 

There are 20,000 students currently using Make Music Count. 

In one year we will serve 300,000 because we will now be able to secure our first 10 district wide partnerships.

Our goal is to service 1 million students in 5 years which will be done through increased exposure as a vendor for school districts and an increase presence on social media. 

Make Music Count is a global solution because we have successful combined math and music. That means we can tailor or lessons to any cultures music to then teach math lessons. Our goals for the next year are to have greater impact a long the east coast and successfully partner with our first schools in Dubai and Saudi Arabia. 

The international schools are a very important goal because that will secure our proposal that this solution that operate in any language and culture.

Within the year we will also build a team around our product. We are in need of curriculum developers to keep our lessons relevant. We are also in need of a technical support team that can be there for any school partner that have questions about the app. 

Finally building a team will allow the support to truly scale this solution globally. 

The barriers are that we do not have a team to support our potential to grow. Secondly we simply need more exposure to let teachers know that we are a solution that is available. Lastly our solution does not have graduate level support and data that schools can be secure in to purchase our solution.

We are in need of more finances in order to build our team and conduct research to support our claims of improvement in students

Increasing sales and offering pilots to schools is what will allow us to overcome the barriers. We need money to overcome our barriers and making sales is how we will get the funds to do so.

full time staff - 2

part time - 2

Make Music Count is my personal solution for how I overcame math phobia. I have played the piano since the age of 5 learning classical, jazz, and gospel piano. In school I had trouble with math because of the way it was taught to me. I created my own math phobia that stuck with me until college where I realized that playing the piano involved understanding math. I then became a math major to further investigate how math and music connected to each other. Soon after graduation I created Make Music Count. 

Students can tell I've been in their shoes and enjoy seeing an example of someone that can overcome math phobia. My team is the same and our personal connection is why we have been able to grow and scale this business so far.

Boys and girls Club and YMCA we offer our app as an enrichment to their students.

We are also vendors for school districts where we offer supplemental resources to be used during the school day and after school

School districts can license the Make Music Count app at $7 per student for the academic year.

Secondly the app is available in the app store as a freemium model. Once you subscribe you then pay $1.99 a month.

our path to financial sustainability involves increasing the number of home subscribers through our social media presence and becoming a recognized solution for school districts to purchase and use our solution. 

I'm applying to Solve because Make Music Count has great scalability potential. This solution is a global solution that needs support to reach more students. Partnering with Solve would be extremely beneficial providing the research we need for validation and a network to scale our solution. 

Leap Frog - I believe we can make an amazing hand held toy that includes Make Music Count to reach the younger age group 

Khan Academy - We can be a unique additional method to teach math they can offer to their users.

United Way - We want to be a solution to their child well being index to increase the number of 8th grade students that pass their math standards.

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