I am writing to see if anyone else from the Music Teachers Helper community is going to the Music Teachers National Association 2012 National Conference held in New York city from March 24-28. This will be my first time attending a national conference for music teachers, and I am super excited!
The Conference Schedule is packed with workshops, masterclasses, exhibition showcases, and there is a very strong focus on the business side of teaching music, with a whole day dedicated to PROFESSIONAL STUDIO INSTITUTE: Building a Successful Studio in Any Kind of Economy. For those that already have a thriving studio and may not be interested in studio marketing, there is an alternative session called Teaching Artistry, where “Attendees will learn strategies for teaching artistry to students of all levels. Four tracks will explore the topics of technique, basic essential repertoire, advanced repertoire/competition preparation and developing artistry.”
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Posted in Music News, Professional Development
Especially as singers, we HAVE to think, as that’s the only way to affect our instrument. Questions I ask are: “What was the difference between that time and the time before?” “What are you going to do to try to change XX; How successful was what you tried and why?” “What did you think about that sound?” “What did you do differently?”
Overall, I have banned the words “good” and “bad” because neither tell you what to continue working with and what to try to fix. I also try to always use only positive directives. We’ll identify both what behavior we want to replace and then what we want to happen instead. Focus is then on what we WANT to happen, rather than what we don’t want.
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Posted in Practicing, Studio Management, Teaching Tips, Using Music Teacher's Helper
Happy New Year! We hope your year is off to a great start. We’re continuing to work hard to make your music teaching studio even easier to manage with Music Teacher’s Helper.
The native iPhone app is almost finished and we plan to submit it to the Apple iTunes store by the end of January. Please see below for our the latest updates and changes.
- We improved the Daily Summary report. It now gives a detailed view of each lesson’s participants and it includes global/studio-wide events.
- The social buttons on the footer caused Internet Explorer to popup a security question too often. We decided to remove them for your convenience.
- Good news to all affiliates! We’ve increased the cookie retention time from 60 to 180 days. This will give new referrals more time to decide if they want to sign up for a free trial. Remember that if there is no time limit on how long they take to upgrade to a paying account after that point.
- Fixed a rare bug when calendar events were not showing up when viewing day view.
- On the studio website’s contact form, parents needed to Read more…
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Posted in Site Announcements
R&B vocalist Kira Small and her husband, bassist Bryan Beller, was in our area this summer to perform at a house concert that I was hosting. After the concert, Kira was selling CDs at the merch table. She was taking credit card purchases with this tiny white box that plugs into to her iPhone.
She told me about Square, and I decided I would test it out and see how it worked for my teaching studio. At this point all my credit card transactions were happening through PayPal, so it seemed wise to develop some alternatives.
Square has been fantastic so far, a huge step up from Paypal in many respects. The transaction fees are lower (we will look at data shortly), I have the ability to take payments anywhere quickly, I can provide receipts on the spot, and all the money is automatically deposited overnight in my bank account.
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Posted in Financial Business, Music & Technology, Studio Management
Many of my students are ‘first generation’ musicians, meaning that they come from families where no one learnt an instrument. Consequently, there usually isn’t a culture of concert attendance in their families. Access to live music is vital for inspiring students, reminding them of the results of countless hours of practice, teaching them performance etiquette and refreshing their interest and passion. Read more…
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Posted in Performing, Promoting Your Studio, Teaching Tips, Using Music Teacher's Helper
It’s the end of the year, and I’ve been thinking about report cards.
Years ago, as a fairly new teacher, I decided that my students would benefit from more parent-teacher communication. I was sure each parent wondered if his or her child was making the kind of progress of which he was capable. Was Rebecca practicing technique effectively? Was Thomas doing his theory consistently? How much time should Annie really be spending reviewing repertoire vs. learning new music? Read more…
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Posted in Studio Management, Teaching Tips
Based on a Novel Idea by Wendy Stevens.
In her recent website newsletter, Wendy Stevens described a holiday project she designed. She asked her piano students to learn the theme of the “Jingle Bell” chorus and create a variation. Each arranger was filmed debuting his/her arrangement and made into a lovely video.
Fortunately, Wendy shares her marvelous teaching ideas and inspirations on her unique website www.composecreate.com. Subscribing to her free newsletter provides me with numerous ideas and resources. I must give full credit to her for the subject of this blog and am so thankful to find her as a continual resource of inspiration.
The Plot
When preparing for the upcoming holiday recital, lesson time can be zapped by ironing out wrinkles in performance pieces or drilling the performance etiquette routine. Little time is left for covering new concepts or new pieces. This calls for an assignment that captures the students’ attention, challenges their creativity and that can be accomplished in a short amount of time.
The Production
The following steps were taken to prepare students:
1) A lead sheet featuring the melody and chord symbols was reviewed. Early level students were provided with a simple LH version.
2) For inspiration, students were asked to listen to Mozart’s Twelve Variations on “Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman” and follow along with the score. Next they watched the youtube video of Wendy’s students. (As I offer 30-minute lessons with a 30-minute lab time, this was assigned during the lab time and did not take away from lesson time.) Read more…
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Posted in Composing & Arranging, Music & Technology, Music Theory, Performing, Promoting Your Studio, Teaching Tips, Using Music Teacher's Helper
I’ll admit it. I was having a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.”* I was tired. And I was cranky. Very cranky. The last thing that I felt like doing was sharing the love of anything with anyone, especially not music and children. I didn’t want to smile, be polite, or encourage. I just wanted to go crawl in a hole and wallow in my [now laugh-able] self-pity. Can you tell this was not one of my finer moments in life? Pity or no, my students were coming in just a few minutes and I had to teach them. My energy was gone, my head was hurting, and I had nothing left to give that day. I’m pretty sure that I was so desperate that I even prayed for the flu. But instead of getting ill, one of my favorite teachers came to mind and I began to think about what she would do in this situation.
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Posted in Professional Development, Studio Management, Teaching Tips
This is an article by Guest Blogger, Elaine Hirsch.
Learning an instrument is a costly endeavor that doesn’t necessarily have that much to do with the actual cost of the instrument itself. Buying any instrument is usually rather expensive even in the case of models designed for children. Students just starting out may have no need to pay for a professional model, but whatever the price of the instrument, it doesn’t include all of the other costs associated with learning to play it, which may add up to as much as a master’s degree. Here are some the unseen costs of learning an instrument:
Buying vs. Renting
Buying or renting an instrument is a decision parents will have to make from the very beginning. Each option has different pros and cons depending on the needs of the student.
Buying an instrument is a good idea if students have made a serious commitment to learn the instrument and plan on playing it in the future. Buying from the beginning is always cheaper compared to renting an instrument over time. However, renting is a good idea for students who’re just trying out the instrument and aren’t sure if they want to pursue it long-term. Read more…
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Posted in Practicing, Teaching Tips
There’s just one more month to go in 2011. We’ve been working hard all year long to continue improving Music Teacher’s Helper and adding new features to make your life easier. And we don’t plan to stop.
Right now, we’re working on a native iPhone app and are making good progress. We’ll keep you posted and let you know when it’s ready (no launch date yet). In the mean time, remember to check out our mobile app at http://www.musicteachershelper.com/mobile
Give the Gift of an Organized and Automated Studio
Also, now is the time of year when many people start thinking about gifts for their friends and loved ones. If you know a music teacher who could benefit from Music Teacher’s Helper, what greater gift could you give them than paying for a month or two of their Music Teacher’s Helper subscription? It’s easy! Take 30 seconds and send a Music Teacher’s Helper gift certificate today! It’s the perfect gift for any music teacher.
Latest Updates
Here is a list of the updates we launched in November, 2011.
- The Top Practicers section of the Practice Log now filters the list by date range. It also no longer shows inactive students.
- Parent email addresses were not showing up for child students on the Manage Students page. This is now fixed.
- When Automatic Invoices were set to repeat weekly, the schedule Read more…
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Posted in Site Announcements
