Comparing & Choosing a Music Student or Studio Management Software

Once you have more than two or three music students, it essential to develop a hassle-free system to track student schedules, invoices, payments, books you may lend out, emails you send. You can use something as simple as a spreadsheet, but the pay-off for using an online system made specifically for music teachers can be quite large.

Personalized Attention for Each Student

The biggest benefit to using a specialized system is the personal attention you can give to each student. The right system will allow you to keep notes on each student, send personalized reminders, send personalized invoices, etc.Some online music student management systems will even allow you to create profiles and accounts for your students and the parents of students. This can save you time as students are empowered to keep track of their own progress and their own schedules. You will also be seen as a very professional and classy music teacher. This will increase positive word-of-mouth recommendations.

Unique Challenges and Considerations when Selecting a Student Management System

I have spent many years developing registration systems for camps, clubs, field trip programs, libraries, and volunteer programs. All of these systems present unique but fun challenges that must be considered when using a scheduling or management system successfully.

Some essential features to look for in any music student management software

*Must be web-based
*Allow you to easily and students and student families
*Allow you to easily schedule and edit student lesson times
*Allow easy access to a scheduling calendar
*Integrate with online payment gateways like Paypal
*Create automatic lesson reminders through email
*Generate registration forms where new students can sign-up online

Some other points to consider when looking at a music lesson management tool

*How will the system integrate with your current website?
*If you don’t have a website, does the system allow you to create a simple website.
*Will the system easily handle billing for entire families?
*Will the system generate reports you need to track incoming money?
*Can the system easily handle make-up lessons?These are some of the most important points to consider when you begin to expand your music lesson business.

Next Steps

It is best to look for a system that you can try out for free and explore for 10 or 15 minutes. If you can easily find the important features mentioned above, you should sign-up and begin utilizing a great tool. You will be on your way to a better served collection of music students.

I recommend trying Music Teacher’s Helper for individual teachers

or

Try Studio Helper for those managing an entire studio.

Good luck!

Manage your Music Studio Students Online

I came across two of the coolest music studio or teacher tools today. And I know there cool because I check, play with, and build registration systems as hobby.
The first tool is specifically for music teachers, called Music Teachers Helper.
It simplifies everything a music teacher would need to do. It is obviously built by a music teacher (it really is), because it is so easy to use. You can enter your students, list lessons, track attendance, send reminders, create invoices, collect payments online. You can event track student progress and send them notes and reminders. Not only that, but with one click you can create a website, made specifically for music teachers. This is awesome. You should check out Music Teachers Helper. 
You can try it for free and just play with it for a few minutes.

I also checked out Studio Helper. This is geared for a music store owner, dance studio owner, arts center manager or even a karate studio owner. It is a really amazing yet simple system.
This system allows the owner or manager to create teacher profiles (including times they can teach), enter students, allow teachers to manage their own students. Add events to a main calendar, schedule multiple rooms, create invoices, and way more.
What most impresses was the ease of use. I tested out the system for about five minutes and found everything I needed.
It has everything I listed for the Music Teachers Helper, and many, many more features for small business owners. You can allow teacher log-ins, student log-ins, track student performance, and track all payments.
This system is really a dream for owners or operators of music, dance, or arts studios. 
What I found most useful was that mass email feature. You can create templates, track emails, and send out to all students, all teachers, or both. You can also send emails only to certain segments, like just guitar students.
This email feature alone is worth its weight in gold. Communicating directly with your students will keep them at your studio and help them to truly feel valued.
Check out Studio Helper (for free) and tell us what you think in the comments.

Be Proactive- Habit 1

To truly enter into "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People", I believed it was necessary to take the recommendations of Stephen Covey to heart. Most importantly, the suggestion was to be proactive for 30 days. I am at day 17 of process, and it has been great.

In reading this "National Best Seller" I am struck by how it compares to other well known books, like "The Power of Now", by Eckhart Tolle. Covey says we must work on our being, on what we can be. To say, "I can be more patient" is much more powerful than making excuses.

This is one way to explain what living in the now is like. We are constantly making decisions. Covey points out that self-awareness in the decision making process is key to being proactive. This self-awareness allows us to choose our actions and choose them in the context of the ever present now.

Beyond the power of now (our self-awareness), Covey discusses three other "endowments" that contribute to our ability to choose. We have imagination, conscience, and independent will. Defined, they are:

1. Imagination- the ability to create in our minds beyond our present reality.
2. Conscience- a deep inner awareness of right and wrong, of the principles that govern our behavior, and a sense of the degree to which our thoughts and actions are in harmony with them.
3. Independent will- the ability to act based on our self-awareness, free of all other influences.

With these endowments in mind, Covey says, "... Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions." In one sense, our fundamental conditions never change. We always have the power to choose our response to any situation. Tolle describes this ability to choose as the power of now. Of course, our life is filled with mistakes as we try to make the best decisions. Covey acknowledges this reality and gives the following insight:

The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, correct and learn from it... Our response to any mistake affects the quality of the next moment. It is important to immediately admit and correct our mistakes so that they have no power over that next moment and we are empower again.

With this guide in hand, we can start now in the journey to be proactive, a challenge to make decisions in the now, guided by our imagination, conscience, independent will and with commitment to acknowledge mistakes, correct them, and learn from them.

Let's be proactive.

Victory Gardens 2.0

I find this symbolic possibility inspiring and hopeful with the potential for awesome consequences. Please VOTE and pass the word.

Reprinted from www.change.org. Please VOTE!

Thousands of Americans and people from the around the world are asking the Obamas to lead by example on climate change, health policy, economic self-reliance, food security, and energy independence by replanting an organic food garden at the White House with the produce going to the First Kitchen and to local food pantries.

The many successes(1) of the first Victory Garden movement were the result of effective public policy, bold leadership(2) at a time of national crisis, and the commitment of millions of citizens who were ready to roll up their sleeves for the greater good.

There' s no better, more symbolic place for launching a new National Victory Garden Program than at the White House, "America’s House". There's no better, more urgent time(3) than now. And there's NOTHING that can beat the fresh taste of locally-grown, home-cooked foods.

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(1) Victory Gardens (behind homes, schools, in vacant urban lots, etc.) produced 40% of the nation’s produce at their peak, helped conserve food and natural resources at a time of crisis, resulted in the highest consumption rates of fruits and vegetables our nation has seen, and helped keep millions of Americans physically fit and active.
(2) First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt planted a Victory Garden on the White House lawn in 1943 over the objections of the USDA, inspiring millions by her example.
(3) The UN estimates that 1 billion people will go hungry in 2009 while climate scientists predict this year will be one the five warmest years on record.

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For more on the campaign to grow some organic food at the White House, see: www.EatTheView.org and www.TheWhoFarm.org.

My Child Wants to Be Successful

Principle One: (from Confident Parents, Remarkable Kids)

My Child Wants to Be Successful

This principle is beautiful, yet seems to be a quiet impossibility in our society, where mistrust is the norm. Our whole society is set up to try and mediate the effects of mistrust in all of our systems; whether education, financial, the work place, government, and even in our own homes.

It is hard to place an unfailing trust in our children when our families and immediate communities our fractured. Villages do not raise a child because no villages exist in the US. All of this mistrust makes success very difficult for children.

Home is very different from school which is very different than the neighbors, etc. You nor I are connected in the day to day with even our self. How can our children feel the trust they need for success when they are simply a cog in the wheel of our busy lives? We do too much for them, by necessity. If we could be, if we could let them be and trust them, all of us would be better off.

In fact, if we could live with the mantra that:

People of Any Age Want to Be Successful

we would be much better off.

In my mind, this means creating stronger neighborhoods (read villages). Bringing the level of trust in our lives to a higher level is better for us, better for our neighbors, better for our coworkers, and better for our children.

Strong relationships built on trust will help us all be successful.

The Power of Paradigm

Earlier, I discussed the Character Ethic and What to Do When We Disagree with Others as outlined in the introduction of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Along with these ideas, Covey defines paradigms and what they mean in our lives.

He describes paradigms as maps, theories, or explanations that we use to view the world. He suggests that two kinds of maps exist:

1. Realities-maps of the way things are
2. Values- maps of the way things should be

Wrapped up in our paradigms is who we are. Covey tells us that "we see the world as we are". In fact, though we may talk about taking someone else's point of view, it is incredibly hard to do. This is what I outlined in my previous post.

In regard to paradigms, Covey insists that they are not separable from our character. He says,

Being is seeing in the human dimension. And what we see is highly interrelated to what we are. We can't go very far to change our seeing without simultaneously changing our being, and vice versa.

This changing our being is what many of us instinctively know we must do. How else can we explain the drive to make and keep New Year's Resolutions? We want happiness and know that involves seeing the world differently. And yet we makes goals to change ourselves to see the world differently. It truly seems to be a complimentary process as Covey describes.

As we change both our being and our seeing, then, we change our paradigms of realities and values.

Following posts will outline the habits Covey gives us to be stronger in our quest to change paradigms.

What to Do When We Disagree with Other People in Conversation

In Stephen Covey's introduction to The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, he stresses that one must cultivate a character ethic as a path towards primary greatness. He distinguishes primary greatness, or who we are, from secondary greatness, mere social recognition for our talents or what we say and do.

Covey outlines many different principles that we should act on in our life to live the character ethic:

• Fairness
• Integrity
• Honesty
• Human Dignity
• Service
• Quality
• Excellence
• Potential
• Growth
• Patience
• Nurturance
• Encouragement

Covey insists these principles are not practices or values. They are in fact something deeper that stems from the human condition and that all of our lasting solutions will come from the "inside-out".

The point I most reflected on was,

"When other people disagree with us, we immediately think something is wrong with them."

Taking this quote to heart is quite eye-opening. He is right. This is the tendency of me and most people I know. When we disagree with someone it becomes a discussion, but that discussion is usually a covert attempt to persuade the other person that we are correct and that he or she is incorrect. Sometimes the attempt is much more overt and the discussion turns into an argument, and no ever really wins and argument.

What would the world look like if we could actually disagree with others without feeling the need to convince them that we were correct?

I believe we would need to cultivate the principles Covey outlines, and that it would also mean we listen by entering into the other's point of view without questioning it. This can be hard to do, but I find myself doing it often with books. This is why I can say whatever book I am reading is the best book I've ever read. It is allowing me to change my thinking without an argument.

Books present a great chance to practice this skill of listening without judgment. I know I can be patient with a book, even when I disagree with the contents. Transferring this mind-set over to real life conversation is difficult, but doable. It is better to practice a skill in a more controlled environment than in the heat of the moment.

One way to participate in a conversation where you find yourself disagreeing with the person is to stop believing you must convince he or she of something, simply listen, and view it as a chance to learn something that you did not know before.

It can really make for a fascinating time to consider the world deeply from an other's point of view as you listen to he or she describe his or her paradigm. In a sense, you become connected to that person in a way that is not possible in regular conversation.

Take time to consider what the person told you away from the initial conversation. Enter as deeply as you can into their paradigm and consider what similarities exist for you. Consider what differences there are, but still keep in mind why these might make sense for the other person.

After this process it is much easier to converse respectfully with someone you disagree with.