Introducing My New Studio Site

After a couple of previous tries with other services, I finally took the plunge and created the real thing--a studio site that offers my students and collaborators a one-stop website where they can view their upcoming sessions, lesson notes, lesson history, repertoire, items on loan, and files, as well as information on upcoming events and music-related resources. This architecture is all courtesy of Music Teacher's Helper, which allows teachers to create a centralized space where they can manage their studio and have their students or students' parents view their progress. In addition to the links in this post, you can also get there via the navigation bar just below the header.

One of the trickiest things about managing my professional life involves the sheer diversity of the types of events that I need to schedule:

• lessons at both the RCM main location and my Oakville home studio
  
• coachings
• rehearsals
• dress rehearsals
• classes
• master classes
• meetings with multiple committees
  
• concerts
• auditions
• practice time for me

MTH allows a teacher to customize types of events and their cost. Fortunately, the RCM handles referrals and billing for all my teaching, but I need to manage everything else from scheduling to repertoire to figuring out which of my books and CDs I've lent to whom. In addition, for my playing and adjudicating engagements I need to be able to manage accounts receivable in a very organized way and be able to issue invoices and recepts to individuals and companies.

It should be a fascinating journey (and learning curve!). I've already entered all of my 30+ students at the RCM and my teaching schedule from May 19 onwards. At this week's lessons, I'll be giving out userid and password info. This weekend has already been a blast learning how to trick out an MTH teacher's site--being able to easily add pages and embed stuff (like YouTube videos and a Sitemeter traffic counter) via html is a definite plus. My next challenge is to integrate what I teach in the studio with what students and parents see on their login-only areas.

Stay tuned...