I Am In Love

   Natalie, at Music Matters, introduced me to Evernote, a free app organizing tool. I so appreciate the review and I am in love. It was just what I needed to keep track of piano lesson notes and ideas. I have a note for every student in a folder entitled "piano students".

    The search features allow such flexibility. I can add as many tags to a note as I please which helps me find a specific note quickly. With a free subscription I can upload 60 megs of material every month. I love opening the app and search for Thursdays lessons and seeing my notes for each student and a picture to boot. I think seeing their happy faces makes me excited to teach them.

     The app syncs to all my devices so I can create a note on one device and have it on the other in seconds. There are more great features. I have a little clipper that grabs an internet page and sends it to Evernote and makes a makes a note for me. I can take a picture of some music and put it in a note with a message to work on the piece. I can e-mail a note to a parent so I can share an insight. I could go on but this is enough to give you a peek into the ways I use Evernote.
   Love is in the air and it delivers to my device.

Thank Your Music Teacher

If you can read this hug your piano teacher!

New Faber Supplement Books

   I just looked at a great little page about the new Faber Pre-Time- Fun Time books. They have some videos with Randall explaining aspects of the pieces. It was worthwhile for me and I wanted to share. Have any of you used these books and what is your favorite?

http://pianoadventures.com/video/

    There is also a feature on this site which allows you to see the whole Faber catalog and check off any you wish to purchase. Then the site routes you to your favorite internet music retail site and places your selections in their check-out page. Wow!! I spend a lot of time trying to find just the right book online because the search engines on the music sites seem to be limited.

4th Most Used I-Pad Application

   Music Teacher's Helper is an online software package to help run your teaching business. It is the largest expense I have. I use it many times a day on my I-Pad Internet. Sometimes I get frustrated with it but it has made many aspects of teaching easier. It manages my student information, e-mails automatically, keeps track of billing, runs my teaching calendar, and allows me to design a website for my students.
   At the onset I found I needed to review the video tutorials many times. This helped me get through some mistakes I made in setting things up. The support is very timely and new upgrades keep the software user friendly.
  Not all my parents use e-mail, not everyone checks their e-mail regularly, but after two years I have found that this software has helped communication between parents and myself greatly.
   This summer I started encouraging online access for each parent. I assigned Usernames and Passwords and allowed them to register for open slots. As Fall approaches, my schedule will be set but I will have a few open slots that can be used if they must cancel a lesson.
   You can see my website here.