Two weeks ago, I attended a two-day seminar called, Managing Ourselves, hosted by a business known well here in Ann Arbor, Michigan called Zingerman’s Community of Businesses (or, ZCOB, as they are fond to say). I had a great time at this seminar, and am excited to share few highlights and takeaways with you!
Continue reading “Zingerman’s ZingTrain Workshop: “Managing Ourselves””Tag: studio business
40 Ways to Use Notion as a Music Professional
If you’ve been around my blog lately, you’ve probably heard me talk about Notion — my favorite online tool ever for managing my business and life.
I’m not alone in being excited about Notion. Notion is taking the world by storm, thanks to its unique, lego-like format allowing you to create pages exactly the way you want — whether simple or complex.
As Notion’s website states: “Notion is a single space where you can think, write, and plan. Capture thoughts, manage projects, or even run an entire company — and do it exactly the way you want.”
In this article, I’ll share 40 ways music professionals can utilize Notion. Without further ado, here’s my list.
Continue reading “40 Ways to Use Notion as a Music Professional”Early Bird Rate Expires Soon: Organize Your Life with Notion, an Online Workshop with Amy Chaplin & Joy Morin
Hello, friends!
Just a quick note to tell you that the early bird discount expires soon for the upcoming online workshop Amy Chaplin and I are offering. It’s called, Organize Your Life With Notion, and over the two days we teach you how to use Notion — our favorite online tool ever — to manage your music studio…and life in general!
If case you aren’t familiar with Notion… it’s basically a note-taking app you can use on your phone and computer to create pages for tracking information or planning projects (think student information, recitals, events, trips, notes…anything you can think of!).
Continue reading “Early Bird Rate Expires Soon: Organize Your Life with Notion, an Online Workshop with Amy Chaplin & Joy Morin”Freebie: Lesson Attendance Sheet Updated for 2024-25
I just updated one of the studio business forms from my Printables page for the 2023-24 school year. It is called the Lesson Attendance & Payment Sheet PDF. Even though I don’t personally use this sheet myself anymore (I now charge a monthly flat tuition rate), every year I receive requests from teachers asking if I would please update it for the upcoming school year. And I’m happy to do so!
Continue reading “Freebie: Lesson Attendance Sheet Updated for 2024-25”Your Qs Answered, and How I Use Notion to Manage My Piano Studio
As my friend Amy Chaplin and I prepare for our upcoming online workshop about how to use Notion (a productivity/note-taking app we are both fans of), we’ve been receiving great questions from piano teachers about Notion. Today, I thought I would answer some of those questions and also share more specifics about how I use Notion to manage my piano studio.
An aside: I hope I’m not bombarding you with too much info about Notion! I think you’ll find this blog post interesting, but if not, rest assured I have content on other topics coming down the pipeline soon. 🙂
Q: Is Notion specifically for music teachers/professionals?
A: No, Notion is not music-specific. It’s a general productivity/note-taking app that is taking the world by storm right now. Tons of people are getting into it and are finding great ways to use it.
Notion is part of the “no-code movement” — an effort to make it possible to build your own interactive pages, systems, or software without having to know computer programming. The basics of Notion are easy to learn. And over time, you can continue to learn and “grow into” it. It’s kind of like building with Legos: once you know what building blocks you have, you can build whatever you desire.
During our workshop, Amy and I are excited to share our enthusiasm for Notion and help other piano teachers find ways it can support our unique work as independent teachers and business owners.
Q: Can Notion take the place of studio management software?
A: Yes and no. Notion can do a lot of things, but it cannot do things like invoicing or collecting tuition payments, for example. You would need other platforms for those functions.
Personally, I have never used an all-in-one program such as My Music Staff or Duet Partner (although I do think they are good services). Instead, I use a variety of services for managing my studio business. For example, my students pay a flat rate tuition payment automatically each month using Coinhop. This eliminates the task of manual invoicing. For keeping track of my teaching schedule, I use Google Calendar. To keep track of student information and much more, I use Notion (more on this shortly).
Continue reading “Your Qs Answered, and How I Use Notion to Manage My Piano Studio”An Introduction to Notion — A Customizable Digital Workspace to Organize Everything in Your Life
Do you find yourself using paper LESS and using apps MORE when managing your to-dos and projects?
I know I do! Although there are a few areas of life where I prefer paper, most of the time I prefer keeping things digital.
In fact, I’ll admit I’m a little bit of a nerd when it comes to following what new apps or platforms are available in the productivity and note-taking space. I find it fun to see what each one has to offer, and if it looks interesting enough I might even take it for a test drive.
In 2021, I revisited a platform called Notion and was blown away with its capabilities. I downloaded a few of their free page templates and started customizing them to my own needs, and I’ve been hooked ever since.
Notion has become my go-to hub for keeping track of almost anything in my life, both personal and professional. For me, it has replaced other tools such as Apple Notes, Evernote, Trello, Airtable databases, and even Google Docs/Sheets/Forms in many cases. Notion is simple to use, yet can be incredibly powerful, flexible, and customizable.
In this blog post, I’ll tell you why you might want to give Notion a try, what it can do for you, and how you can get started with it. Perhaps Notion will become an all-in-one place for you to keep your life organized, as it has for me!
Continue reading “An Introduction to Notion — A Customizable Digital Workspace to Organize Everything in Your Life”Freebie: Lesson Attendance Sheet Updated for 2023-24
I just updated one of the studio business forms from my Printables page for the 2023-24 school year. It is called the Lesson Attendance & Payment Sheet PDF. Even though I don’t personally use this sheet myself anymore (I now charge a monthly flat tuition rate), every year I receive requests from teachers asking if I would please update it for the upcoming school year. And I’m happy to do so!
Continue reading “Freebie: Lesson Attendance Sheet Updated for 2023-24”5 Steps for Successful Interview Lessons with Music Students
Interview lesson, meet-and-greet, intro lesson, trial lesson, consultation—whatever you choose to call them, introductory sessions are a great way to jumpstart your potentials students’ success in music lessons. This article presents five steps to help you make the most of your interview lessons with new music students.
Step 1: Define Your Goals for the Interview Lesson
Before conducting an interview lesson, it is important to determine your goals for an interview lesson. For many music teachers, these sessions are useful for setting expectations for their music studio and determining if a student-teacher fit is possible. They allow you to build rapport, communicate your expectations for practice, behavior, payments and other studio policies and procedures, and assess the student’s goals, needs and level of interest.
Additionally, an interview lesson can also be an opportunity to:
Continue reading “5 Steps for Successful Interview Lessons with Music Students”Freebie: Lesson Attendance Sheet Updated for 2022-23
I just updated one of the studio business forms from my Printables page for the 2022-23 school year. It is called the Lesson Attendance & Payment Sheet PDF. Even though I don’t personally use this sheet myself anymore (I now charge a monthly flat tuition rate), every year I receive requests from teachers asking if I would please update it for the upcoming school year. And I’m happy to do so!
In case you haven’t seen this from before, here is how it works: Write your students’ names in the first column. Each week, write the lesson date (in a month / date format) in the column for that week. This is how you can track attendance. The small circles in each cell are where you can write checkmarks indicating tuition payments. Whether you charge by-the-week or by-the-month, you can place a checkmark by each paid lesson date.
Download it below or on the Printables > Studio Business page.
Lesson Attendance & Payment Sheet (2024-25) (140.9 KiB, 37,225 hits)
Q: Who buys the music books — teacher or student?
Today’s blog post topic comes to you as a result of a question submitted by a reader. The question I received was essentially: How do you go about acquiring music books for piano students and managing the reimbursement/expense?
While there is no single “best” way to do business, there are certainly a number of good options to consider in order to find a procedure that works best for you and your clients. In this blog post, we’ll explore a handful of possible procedures and discuss their potential downsides and upsides.
4 Main Options for Acquiring Music Books and Managing the Expense
As I see it, here are the main options for self-employed music teachers:
- You can ask students/parents to purchase their own sheet music.
- You can purchase sheet music on behalf of your students and then collect reimbursement afterwards.
- You can purchase sheet music on behalf of your students and cover the expense yourself via a special books/material/registration fee.
- You can purchase sheet music on behalf of your students and cover the expense as part of the tuition fee charged for piano lessons.
Let’s discuss each option in more depth.
Continue reading “Q: Who buys the music books — teacher or student?”Meet my new digital piano: a Kawai CN29!
I bought a new digital piano! It’s a Kawai CN29.
The backstory: My grand piano has ivory keys I don’t want to use sanitizers on, so I’ve been using my digital pianos since transitioning my Michigan students to in-person lessons. (Fortunately, I can still use my grand for online lessons!) My current digital pianos are old and in need of update, so I started researching and looking at models at a couple of local stores.
Continue reading “Meet my new digital piano: a Kawai CN29!”Freebie: Lesson Attendance Sheet Updated for 2021-22
Just a quick post today!
I just finished updating one of the studio business forms from my Printables page for the 2021-22 school year. It is called the Record of Lesson Attendance & Payment PDF. I do not currently use this form myself anymore, but every year I receive multiple requests from teachers asking if I would please update it for the upcoming school year!
In case you haven’t seen this from before, here is how it works: Write your students’ names in the first column. Each week, write the lesson date (in a month / date format) in the column for that week. This is how you can track attendance. The small circles in each cell are where you can write checkmarks indicating tuition payments. Whether you charge by-the-week or by-the-month, you can place a checkmark by each paid lesson date.
Download it below or on the Printables > Studio Business page.
P.S.: Here is a link to where I explain an alternative system for tracking payments received. But nowadays, I enter everything into a Google Sheet! I explain my system and share the spreadsheet in my online course for piano teachers, Excellence for Piano Teachers. If you’re interested, you can learn more and join the email list to be notified when the next session is offered (usually in January).
Hope you are having a great week, everyone!