The S-Cubed AI Coach Is Ready — Three Weeks Early!
I clicked “publish” on my announcement a little sooner than I expected to. I can still tweak things for infinity and beyond, so that's good, but I am feeling great about this new endeavor.
The S-Cubed AI Coach is ready. Actually, it’s more than three weeks early.
That feels a little strange to write because I’ve been working toward an October 6 release date for months. I expected to be scrambling right up until the end. Instead, I’ve reached a point where the app is working beautifully, the onboarding is working, and people who have gone through it are telling me it looks and feels professional, so I am treating this announcement as a soft launch. If any of you purchase it, and you have questions or feedback, come straight to me. inthemiddlewithmrd@gmail.com. In the subject line write- AI Coach question/suggestion
So what am I doing with the extra three weeks? I’m doing what I’ve always done with S-Cubed. I’m listening.
One of the people testing the app right now is a musician friend who helped me way back in 2009, when I was trying to turn my approach to teaching sight singing into a book. This was before I had heard of Teachers Pay Teachers. Before S-Cubed. Before I had any idea where all of this would eventually go.
Seventeen years later, I asked him to go through the app as though he were an actual teacher using S-Cubed. I want him to get confused. I want him to ask questions. I want him to tell me when something isn’t clear. I want to know what happens when somebody who isn’t inside my head tries to use the app.
I’ve had several other friends go through the onboarding process, too. So far, their feedback has been extremely positive. They’ve commented on the flow, how easy it is to understand, and how professional the whole experience feels.
That makes me happy.
But I’m not done listening. I want this to do what it is supposed to do for people who trust my work.
The more you tell the Coach, the more useful it becomes
Something came up while my friend was testing that I think is really important. The S-Cubed Coach isn’t meant to be something you visit, ask a generic question, get a generic answer from, and leave.
Tell it what is actually happening in your classroom.
That’s where this gets interesting. You can type your needs or talk them into a microphone. The more information you give about what you are encountering, the more the app is able to help you.
Let’s say you have a child with ADHD who simply cannot seem to stop singing the Forbidden Pattern. Tell the Coach what’s happening. Give it some context. What have you already tried? When does the student do it? How are the other kids reacting? Or maybe you have a kid who knows EXACTLY what the Forbidden Pattern is and sings it on purpose just to get a reaction.
That’s a different problem!
Tell the Coach.
Maybe you taught Follow the Hand and it was a complete disaster. You thought you executed it the Mr. D explains. The kids looked like they understood. Then they tried it and…nope.
Tell the Coach what happened.
And here is something I’m particularly excited about: next time, record yourself teaching it. Upload the video and ask for feedback.
Maybe there’s something in your delivery that you aren’t seeing. Maybe the directions need to be tightened up. Maybe the kids need something different before they’re ready for that particular skill.
Or maybe nothing is “wrong” at all.
Maybe you’ve taught one of my games for five years and YOU are bored with it.
I understand that one!
Tell the Coach:
I understand the purpose of this game, but I’m tired of teaching it this way. Give me some fresh ideas that accomplish the same S-Cubed goal.
That’s what I want this to become.
Not technology for technology’s sake.
Useful help when a teacher needs it.
I built it for the teacher who is starting tomorrow
When I started creating the S-Cubed Coach, I kept thinking about the teacher who has just purchased S-Cubed and is sitting at home on Sunday night trying to figure out what to do Monday morning.
I know that teacher.
I’ve answered emails from that teacher since 2013.
Sometimes the question is about sight singing. Sometimes it’s classroom management. Sometimes it’s pacing. Sometimes it’s simply, “Dale, am I doing this right?”
Sometimes it is...why aren't we using key signatures yet? Or some other of the non-traditional ways I have laid out my program from the start. I also thought about the teacher who bought S-Cubed two or three years ago with every intention of using it…and never really got it off the ground.
Life happened. The school year got crazy. They started Lesson 1 but never made it very far. Or something didn’t work the way they expected, so they put it aside.
This Coach is for you, too. It helps you plan around your schedule, your concerts and your holidays so you stay on track.
And then there are the longtime S-Cubed teachers.
Some of you know this program incredibly well. You don’t necessarily need somebody to explain Lesson 3 to you again. But after teaching something for years, sometimes you need a fresh set of eyes.
How can I make this feel new?
What can I do with this particular group with this special set of problems/issues.
Why is something that worked beautifully last year falling flat with this year’s kids?
The Coach can help with that, too.
That’s why I really see this as something for any teacher who uses S-Cubed, regardless of where you are in the journey.
I wanted the advice given to be exactly what I would give you if I were in your classroom watching you teach S-Cubed because the philosophy matters
This was probably the most important part for me.
I didn’t want to create an AI app, dump the S-Cubed lessons into it and call it a Coach.
That wouldn’t interest me very much, and it isn't how I roll. If you know my work, you know that about me.
I wanted this app to understand why I teach the way I teach.
If you’ve followed me for very long, you know my formula:
3/4 cup learning + 1/4 cup FUN = SUCCESS!
That goes for ALL of my lessons that I offer in my TPT store.
That isn’t just a cute phrase I came up with for marketing. It really is how I taught. Middle school kids need structure. They need high expectations. They need to learn. They also need to laugh. They need to feel safe enough to fail. They need to experience success and so do you.
Remember what S-Cubed stands for:
Successful Sight Singing.
I don't think “successful” should apply only to the child.
If the students eventually become great sight singers but the teacher is exhausted, frustrated and miserable getting them there, I haven't accomplished what I set out to accomplish.
I want successful students AND successful teachers.
That philosophy has been infused throughout the Coach.
And then there is Lesson 6: Chaos
Those of you who already use S-Cubed know why I’m bringing this one up.
Chaos. Lesson 6. It is one of the most important moments in those first ten lessons because it can look and feel like everything is falling apart. But there is a purpose behind it. While I was developing the Coach, I tested it repeatedly with situations like this because I wanted to know whether it would give a teacher advice that actually reflected what I would tell that teacher.
I recorded one of those tests, and you can watch it here:
Watch my Lesson 6 “Chaos” test
That’s the kind of help I’ve built into this app.
You shouldn’t have to sit at home wondering, What in the world just happened in my classroom today?
Ask the Coach.
What is this actually worth to a teacher?
I thought about this a lot when I set the price because I wanted to make the Coach affordable enough that a teacher could actually use it as a daily resource. That's how it is intended to be used.
There are two options during this opening period.
Three months is $89. That works out to less than $1 per day for access to coaching every single day. That's about the cost of a Starbucks Coffee, right?
Or you can choose a full year for $249, which works out to less than 70 cents per day. That will buy you a lot more Starbucks coffee, and you'll have it all year.
Right now, the Coach focuses on Lessons 1–10. I did that very intentionally. Those early lessons are where so much of the S-Cubed foundation is created, and they’re also where a teacher who is new to the program is most likely to need me. Will I add more? Maybe!
I’m going to see where this goes.
If teachers use it, love it, and there is demand for support beyond Lesson 10, then I’ll build more into the app. If I get tons of emails from teachers who make it to lesson 10 successfully, and tell me to add more, I'll do it.
I don't need to pretend I know today exactly what this will look like a year from now. That's part of what makes this exciting to me.
You can try it before I officially launch it.
This is another benefit of finishing early.
You don’t have to take my word for any of this.
Go try it.
The app is available now, and you are completely welcome to explore it before I demonstrate it at the official premiere.
Try the S-Cubed AI Coach. By clicking this link, you'll head to the landing page where you can choose to experience the onboarding process at no cost. Remember- this is a soft launch- That means, if you love it, please review it on Studio.com. Please and thank you. If you don't love something about how it functions, reach back to me personally. inthemiddlewithmrd@gmail.com
If you already use S-Cubed, ask it about something that has actually happened in your classroom.
Challenge it.
If you’re brand new, tell it you’re brand new.
If you bought S-Cubed years ago and never really got going, tell it that.
And if you've been using my program forever, give it something complicated and see what it says.
I’d much rather you experience what I’ve built than have me spend ten paragraphs trying to convince you how useful it is.
Then I want to show you what I've learned
The official premiere is still happening on Tuesday, October 6, 2026 at 7:00 PM Eastern on Zoom.By then, I will have had three additional weeks of people testing the app, asking questions and giving me feedback. That means the product I demonstrate on October 6 should be even better than the one that is ready today. That's the great thing about this. I can tweak and keep tweaking as time goes by...the same way I did and still do with the original Mega Bundle of S-Cubed Sight Singing Program for Beginners.
And THAT is a pretty wonderful position to be in three weeks before a launch.
Join me live for the S-Cubed Coach premiere on October 6 at 7 PM Eastern
I keep thinking about my friend helping me with that book in 2009. Neither one of us could possibly have imagined this. The book didn't happen.
Something else did.
S-Cubed found its way onto Teachers Pay Teachers. Teachers began using it. They emailed me. I answered them. They told me what worked. They told me what didn't. I changed things. I made videos. I answered more questions. More teachers found it.
And now, seventeen years after I was trying to figure out how to put these ideas into a book, I'm figuring out how to put my experience, my philosophy and the lessons I've learned from teaching thousands of middle school singers into a completely different kind of tool we never could have imagined by then.
Technology changed.
My mission didn't.
I still want that beginning teacher to walk into the classroom tomorrow feeling a little more confident than they did today.
I still want those kids to discover that they really CAN sight sing.
And I still believe deeply in the formula that started all of this:
3/4 cup learning + 1/4 cup FUN = SUCCESS!
Let's see where this goes. ❤️
