Software Applications for Music School

Music schools have to coordinate lessons across a large student population. As students come and go, the process of matching students to teachers and scheduling classes while keeping parents and school management in the loop can be a daunting process.

With music school software, musical schools can organize these processes using a single interface that manages interactions between students, teachers, and parents.

This guide will help you understand what music school software is as well as the various factors that should be considered when choosing a music school software solution.

Here’s what we'll cover:

• What is music school software?

• Common features of music school software

• What type of buyer are you?

• Benefits of music school software

• Market trends

What is music school software?

Music school software makes it easy for music schools to register students, schedule lessons, and send automated reminders. This software also helps music schools track the availability of instructors, match instruction levels with teachers, and record the amount of teaching hours provided to students. In doing so, music schools can more accurately invoice their customers and provide an online portal for parents to communicate with teachers, monitor their child’s musical progress, and be updated on lesson schedules.

Common features of music school software

While features vary from product to product, music school software typically offers some or all of the following functionality:

What type of buyer are you?

• Virtual music schools: Considering that virtual or online music schools have the potential to reach a larger audience of potential students than traditional brick-and-mortar schools, the sheer number of lessons generated across a larger population of students and teachers demands a higher level of organization. Music school software provides a means to keep these scheduling demands in check. Furthermore, music school software provides a portal for parents, students, and teachers to connect with each other in the absence of in-person interaction.

• Brick-and-mortar music schools: In addition to coordinating lesson times between students and teachers, these physical schools also need to keep track of on-site lesson and practice spaces as well as track rented practice equipment. Music school software contains fields specific to these types of schools without further customization.

Benefits of music school software

• Improves parental involvement: Music school software not only benefits school owners, but also provides parents with a means of instantly accessing information about their child’s progress throughout their musical education. Using an online portal and messaging, teachers can much more proactively inform parents of practice recommendations and keep them in the loop on homework requirements while also notifying parents about potential behavior issues.

• Maximizes teaching resources: By providing a scheduling mechanism for teachers, practice areas, and rental music equipment, music school software helps school owners know when there are shortfalls in teaching faculty or other resources so that they don’t miss opportunities for potential revenue when new students matriculate.

• Improves accountability: Through improved schedule visibility between teachers and parents, the onus on parents to make sure that their children attend lessons is increased, and helps ensure that they will still be responsible for payment if lessons are missed.

Key considerations for purchasing music school software

Choosing which music school software to buy can seem daunting at first, considering there are so many solutions on the market to choose from. Here are a couple factors to consider when purchasing music school software:

• Software integrations: Although music school software offers tools that help music schools manage scheduling and interactions between students, parents, and teachers, you may want to consider other integrations that can provide great value to your institution. For instance, by integrating music school software with your accounting tool, you can automatically generate invoices to parents as lessons are completed.

• Multiple disciplines: Many music schools teach across multiple disciplines, such as dance or visual arts. As a result, many music school packages can also include specificity for these curricula as part of, or as a modular addition, to their software package. Consider if a package that lets your school expand into other art forms would benefit your organization.

Market trends to understand

When looking to purchase music school software, be sure to understand the following market trends to ensure that you choose a solution that grows with your business goals:

Streaming recorded content: As students move towards instantly accessible video instruction materials, the ability to provide media directly through your musical school’s online portal will become more and more prevalent. Consider future opportunities for providing instruction through recorded videos where teacher instruction is reserved for periodically monitoring student progress.

Live instruction through video conferencing: Recent changes in video conferencing capabilities has made it easier for students to receive instruction directly over the web. Look forward to future integrations where music school software also manages the facilitation of live one-to-one or one-to-many instruction.

Integration with social media: As video media continues to populate social media platforms, music school software will take advantage of this trend by allowing the publication of lesson snippets and online recitals directly to social media feeds.

Note: The application selected in this article is an example to show a feature in context and is not intended as an endorsement or recommendation. It has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable at the time of publication.