Last July I did a review of Music Teacher’s Helper after setting up a free limited account with them. In January of this year I decided to take the plunge and pay for a full subscription - this would allow me to use the record-keeping system with an unlimited number of students. If you are looking for a way to eliminate some of the record-keeping headaches all of us music teachers experience, Music Teacher’s Helper (MTH) is definitely the way to go! There is so much to love about this program and it is well worth the [tax-deductible] $24.95 I pay for it each month. Here are some features I love:

* Every parent and every student receives their own secure page with a login and password so that they can access their account at any time and view schedule information, payment information, make on-line payments via a PayPal account, credit card or bank account, request lesson cancellations, view items on loan from the lending library, etc. There’s a handy script provided by MTH that I was able to place on my website so that students can login from there: http://nataliespianostudio.com/lessoninfo.htm

* Lending Library - When I lend a student a book or CD at their lesson I quickly enter it on the Lending Library page. This way I can keep track of who has what and the students can see on their account information what books they are borrowing. Now I’m not losing nearly as many books and CDs as a result of not remembering which student borrowed them!

* I can e-mail invoices to students at any time. Now, when I buy new materials for a student or there is a fee for participation in an event, I just add it to their account and send them an invoice. Checks come in with the students the next week and everything is paid for. And to think I used to cover a lot of these costs for my students just because I couldn’t get my act together enough to bill them for the books or felt bad about doing so!

* In my Year-End Evaluations this year I asked on the Parent Questionnaire if it was offered if they would be interested in paying for lessons on-line via a credit card or PayPal account. Over half of my studio responded in the affirmative, so I just finished the incredibly simple process of setting it up on my site. I can’t wait to see how this works! According to the instructions provided by MTH, when payment is made the information is automatically sent from PayPal to my MTH account and the payment for that family is recorded. This has the potential to cut out almost all of my manual entry work! Woohoo!

* Even the free MTH accounts include an attractive, professionally designed website that can be customized for your studio. You can view mine here. Since I have another website I don’t use this one much, but the more you can spread your name on the web, the better!

* Since MTH is all web-based, it allows for constant upgrades and improvements without any installation on your computer (which is what you would have to do if you purchased a stand-alone software program). Of course, this also allows parents and students to access their own information at their convenience. Brandon Pearce, the developer of the site, is constantly looking for ways to improve the system and is very open and responsive to suggestions. He’s developed a great product - one that can benefit every music teacher.

There are plenty of other features that I haven’t even tapped into yet, but hope to in the near future - such as the Repertoire Tracker, Automatic Invoicing, Expense Records… If you haven’t already, click on over to Music Teacher’s Helper today and try it out for yourself! Summer is the perfect time to make the transition and to convey a more professional image to your students and community when you pull back the curtains on your new studio perk this fall!

Michael Hawley, co-first-prize winner of the 2002 International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs, will be giving a recital this Friday, May 25 at 6:00 p.m. C.S.T. The recital will be held in the Van Cliburn Recital Hall in Fort Worth, Texas and will be streamed over the Internet so that millions of viewers worldwide can enjoy watching this live performance!

Click the online registration links on this page to register to watch this live webcast concert for free!

Michael Hawley’s program for the concert is as follows:

Appetizer
Rameau-Godowsky: Sarabande in E major
Lully-Godowsky: Sarabande in E minor
Bach-Hawley: Fugue in G major “Gigue”
Bach-Hawley: Passacaglia & Fugue in C minor

Entree
Chopin:
Prelude in C-sharp minor, Op. 45
Barcarolle in F-sharp major, Op. 60
Etude in E minor, Op. 25, No. 5
Godowsky: Study No. 34 (based on Chopin’s Etude, Op. 25, No. 5)
New Etude in A-flat major, No. 3
Godowsky: Study No. 45 (based on Chopin’s New Etude No. 2)

Dessert
Moszkowski-Volodos-Hawley: Etincelles, Op. 36, No. 6
Saint-Saëns/Godowsky: The Swan (from Carnival of the Animals)
Dohnanyi: Capriccio in F minor, Op. 28, No. 6
Berlin-Tatum: Blue Skies

Do you want to print your own attractive, professionally-designed certificates? Check out this amazing site where you can customize and print your own certificates. Choose from a variety of professionally-designed templates. It’s fast and easy and they look great!

Thanks to D’Net for alerting me to this great resource!

If you are looking for an easy, inexpensive way to record audio in your studio, check out the FlexiMusic Wave Editor.

While the fact that this software was designed by an India-based company is sometimes reflected in the fragmented use of English, the design and features are well thought out and fairly intuitive.

You can download a trial version of the shareware and use it for seven days fully functional. After the seventh day, the save feature is disabled and you will need to pay $20 to receive the license code in order to register the software for continued use.

Once you complete the installation, you will be asked to select your preferred color scheme from nine varieties (a nice touch!). You can change this at any time through the Tools>Options menu in the program. Here are some features I really liked:

PROS
*There are icons for every feature and action that is listed in the menu options, allowing the user to quickly navigate his way around the software.

* When you mouse over any icon, a little text message in the bottom left hand corner of the screen identifies the purpose of the icon (especially valuable for those who are afraid the computer might self-destruct if they accidentally push the wrong button. ).

* There are 3 play buttons, giving the user three options when playing back the audio.
1. Play selected.
2. Play all.
3. Play viewing range.

* There are 11 view buttons, giving the user a wide variety of viewing options when working on editing audio files.

* When you select the record button, a window pops up with a number of options and adjustments that can be made. I really like the fact that you can set the recording to begin at a specified time and continue for a specified duration, indicating things like how much silence should be allowed before the recording automatically stops or pauses or begins a new file.

* Adjustments and selections can be made to the audio file even during playback (other programs I have used put a freeze on all operations during playback).

* When performing more time intensive operations (high level reverb, etc.) a progress bar in the bottom right hand corner of the screen gives you an idea of how much time is left to complete the operation.

* The quality of recording was quite good, with minimal feedback. Here are two sample recordings that I made:
1. With direct line input from Clavinova into the recording software.
2. With an external computer mic set up by my acoustic piano.

Here are some things I didn’t care for about the software:

CONS
* A separate mp3 encoding program was required in order to import and save or convert audio to mp3. However, this is typical of audio recording freeware and shareware and the process was very easy to follow and was done in less than a minute. When you attempt to convert an audio file to mp3 for the first time, a message will appear indicating that you must select the mp3 encoder to use. Just follow the on-screen instructions and links and it should work fine. You only have to do this once to set it up and then it automatically finds the encoder for future use.

* The commonly used keyboard shortcuts and keys are not programmed into the software. For instance, in order to delete a highlighted area of the audio file, you can’t just hit the delete key on the keyboard. You have to go up to the Edit menu and select Delete. You also can’t use ctrl S to save or ctrl N to open a new window. Little things like that that are customary in other programs. Makes routine operations a little bit more cumbersome.

* I couldn’t find any way to do multi-track recording. The closest I came was opening a second window with the FlexiMusic software and starting the recording, then playing the first window with the recorded file while recording into the second file. Then I had to copy the newly recorded file and paste it into the first one using the Edit>Paste>Mix option. It would be nice if there was at least a way to specify when recording an additional selection that the new recording should be mixed rather than just inserted or replace the first.

CONCLUSION
Although there are a few desirable features that make FlexiMusic Wave Editor a handy, inexpensive audio recording software, you can get almost the same, plus the addition of a little bit more user-friendly multi-track recording, with the free Audacity audio recording software.

Another teacher recently alerted me to this wonderful compilation of piano music for one hand. This is great for students who only have the use of one hand, whether permanently, due to disability, or temporarily, due to injury.

Throughout the year this year I’m holding six musical balls for my students. It’s part of our studio incentive program for the year, Let’s Have A Ball! (After the year is over, I’m hoping to package it up like I did the Climbing the Ladder to Success incentive program.) At each of the balls, I hold a drawing and give out a prize to the three students whose names are drawn. The theme of the Spring Ball is original compositions and arrangements, so I thought it would be fitting if the prize was a music dictionary. I absolutely love this music dictionary from FJH:

The FJH Classic Music Dictionary By Edwin Mclean. The FJH Piano Teaching Library. Features: Handy reference charts, and index of musical symbols, a table of common chords, reference for electronic music, guide to orchestral instruments and more. Reference. Level: All levels. Book. Published by The FJH Music Company, Inc. (FF1149) See more info…

Not only did I get a 10% discount for ordering more than one copy, I was also able to track down the following coupon code to receive an additional $1.50 off the order. (This coupon code is good on any order from Sheet Music Plus.)

Coupon Code: s07-5dd-m53
Expiration Date: March 9, 2007

Check out this fun Make Your Own Piano page provided by the Piano Technicians Guild. Just print the page onto a piece of cardstock and follow the instructions - sounds like a fun group activity project for students!

At the beginning of each lesson, I’ve started having my students draw a popsicle stick from a container on the piano. Each popsicle stick has one of the following written on it:

1. Chords

2. Rhythmic Dictation

3. Rhythm and Pulse

4. Vocabulary

5. Melodic Dictation

6. Sight-read

7. Play A Game

8. Written Theory

9. Description

10. Scales/Intervals By Ear

11. Scale Patterns

12. Intervals

13. Note ID

These are all areas that I want to work on with each student, but of course can’t fit into their regular lesson time each week. So at the beginning of the lesson, they draw a stick and we spend 5 or so minutes focusing on that area. Last week one of my young students drew the “Melodic Dictation” stick. I knew he couldn’t handle the wonderful Melodic Dictation worksheets that I use for my older students, so I had to come up with something else for him to do. This is what I came up with:

I grabbed some of my circle magnets and told him that I would play five notes and he had to arrange the magnets on the magnetic board according to the direction that he heard me play the notes - either up, down or repeating. I started out with only those three options. He caught on very quickly, so I told him I would try a couple more advanced patterns. I would mix the notes so that sometimes they might go up and sometimes they might go down. He had to listen carefully and again arrange the notes in the direction that he heard them move.

Not only did he do a great job with this, he also had a ton of fun doing it! I’ve continued to use this with other students that have drawn the “Melodic Dictation” stick and so far they’ve all caught on quickly and enjoyed this fun activity. It seems like a great introduction to help students become successful with melodic dictation exercises!

Here are a couple of resources I’ve found for good deals on magnetic boards and magnets:

Magnetic Boards with Magnets - 1 board, 2 magnets, 1 marker

Magnetic Boards-6/pk

Magnetic Board with marker and 2 round magnets

Color Dots Magnets - 15/pk

Ceramic Disc Magnets - 51/pk

Easy Grip Mighty Mini Magnets - 24/pk

Here’s a helpful list of songs that can be played using only the black keys on the piano. From almost the very first lesson, I like to have students working on picking out songs by ear. This will be a great list to keep on hand!

Want a dose of inspiration as you start your New Year? Head over to Mario’s Piano Podcast to watch “Images in Music” - a podcast produced by one of his students. It is excellent!