For drum schools that want their students practising again
Drum patterns, YouTube tutorials and GrooveScribe blocks in one lesson. Teach Mode puts the lesson live on a second screen in the lesson room. Built by a drum teacher in The Hague.
Why drums schools choose us
Drum patterns that move with you
GrooveScribe blocks attach to your lesson. Students see the exact pattern you share from the drum stool, no scattered PDFs.
Video + tempo control
YouTube and self-uploaded clips per block. Students can slow down sections and loop them while practising between lessons.
Group + private
Works for weekly one-to-one lessons and band coaching. Assign one lesson to several students or a whole group, each tracking their own progress.
What else is in there?
Put your lesson on a second screen in the lesson room. You pick the block, your student sees it big.
Weekly recurring slots, holidays and cancellations, all managed from one calendar.
Streaks, badges and a practice timer. Students practise more because they want to.
Per-student overview of what they practised, where they struggle and where they flow.
Software for drum schools in practice
Running a drum school is about far more than what happens behind the kit. Every week you fill one or two drum rooms with lessons, keep track of who has nailed which groove, and try to get students practising at home, when half of them don't own an acoustic kit. Musicdott is software for drum schools and drum teachers, built by Stefan van de Brug, a drum teacher in The Hague who ran into exactly these problems in his own teaching. Here is what it looks like in an ordinary teaching week.
Grooves written out, not screenshotted
Plenty of drum teachers write grooves in GrooveScribe, take a screenshot and send it over WhatsApp. A month later nobody knows which version was the right one. In Musicdott you paste the GrooveScribe link into the lesson as a block. The pattern appears as proper drum notation with a play button and a tempo setting, so the student hears how the groove should sound. One click adds a drum kit graphic that lights up during playback, showing which drum or cymbal is played at each moment. For beginners who can't read notation yet, that is often when it clicks.
Use the Beat Note app on your iPad? Upload the exported notation together with the audio and it becomes a single block with a play button. For fills, rudiments and whole songs you add a YouTube video, a PDF from your own lesson folder or a link to an audio track. That way you build each student's lesson from material you already have, without retyping anything.
A drum teacher app for home practice, no kit required
Many students practise on a pad, an electronic kit with headphones or a cushion on the sofa. That works fine, as long as they know exactly what to practise and at what tempo. So you set homework as separate assignments: a rudiment, a groove, a section of a song. In the student portal they see what's on this week's list, start a practice session with the built-in timer and tap once to say they've practised an assignment. That earns XP, and practising day after day builds a streak. Before the next lesson you can see who practised and for how many minutes.
After the lesson, you do the assessing, not the student. For each assignment you choose one of four levels, from “still needs practice” to “can apply it”. Over the weeks you can see whether a paradiddle is genuinely in the hands, instead of relying on a student who ticks a box because they're bored of it. If you prepare students for graded exams such as RSL (Rockschool) or Trinity Rock & Pop, you can set each part of the grade, from the performance pieces to the technical exercises and sight-reading, as its own assignment and follow it separately. Musicdott isn't linked to any exam board; you set up the path yourself.
Building tempo with a metronome and slowed-down video
Drumming is all about time. In a lesson you add a metronome block with a starting tempo and time signature, say 70 bpm in 4/4, so the student starts at exactly that tempo at home and works it up step by step. A YouTube block can be set to a slower playback speed with a loop over the tricky bar, so a fill keeps repeating at half speed until it sits. There's a reason for the patience: slow is often faster.
Want to give students or parents something without an account? Point them to the free online metronome with tap tempo and accents, or to slow down audio to play a track slower without changing the pitch.
In the drum room: Teach Mode on a second screen
Behind the kit you have no hands free for a laptop on your knees. With Teach Mode you put a second screen, TV or iPad in the room, paired in seconds by scanning a QR code. You choose on your own screen which block the student sees, and it appears large across from the drum stool. Groove, video or notation: you switch with one click. A YouTube video stays in sync, even when you pause or rewind to show a fill again. Teach Mode is for the lesson room; at home, students open the same lesson in their own student portal.
Drum school admin: schedule, students and parents
Alongside lesson content, Musicdott handles your timetable with weekly recurring lessons and school holidays, your student records, and messages with students and parents. Parents get their own parent portal, with one login covering brothers and sisters, where they see the schedule and their child's progress. Students add their lessons to their phone calendar with an iCal link. Read more about lesson scheduling software and student management software.
Running a drum school with several teachers and want trial lessons booked online from your website, a waiting list and monthly teacher hours? That's the Manager add-on, a paid extension at €19.95 a month. The pricing page shows what each plan costs, and the first month is free.
Why generic music studio software falls short for drummers
Most music studio management tools are built around sheet music and a piano-shaped view of the world. Drummers think in grooves, stickings and feel, and they learn as much by ear and by watching as by reading. That's why Musicdott treats GrooveScribe, play-along video, a metronome and slowed-down loops as proper lesson blocks rather than attachments. Comparing options? Our guide to choosing music school software lists the questions worth asking first, and the practice tracking app page explains the practice side in more detail.
Ensemble playing and band coaching
Lots of drum teachers coach bands as well. You assign the same lesson to several students, or to a whole group at once, while scores and practice time stay separate for each student. If your school covers more than drums, see the pages for bass schools, guitar schools and band schools. Every lesson block type is listed on the lesson platform page.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use GrooveScribe patterns directly?
Yes. Paste a GrooveScribe link into your lesson and the pattern renders inline, no separate browser tabs needed. Students see the same pattern in their own student portal.
Do my students need a drum kit to practise with Musicdott?
No. Students open their lessons in the browser on a phone, tablet or laptop. They practise rudiments and grooves on a pad or an electronic kit; the notation, video and metronome are right there in the lesson.
Can I keep using my existing GrooveScribe grooves and PDFs?
Yes. Paste a GrooveScribe link into a lesson as a block and upload your PDFs. You build lessons from the material you already have, without retyping it.
Is Musicdott only for drum schools, or also for private drum teachers?
Both. A private drum teacher with twenty students uses the same lesson platform, practice tracking and schedule as a school with several teachers. The plans are on the pricing page, and the first month is free.
More questions? See the FAQ on the pricing page.