For piano schools where students actually practise at home

Sheet music and method books in the lesson

Most piano teachers combine a method series with individual pieces. In Musicdott you upload a PDF of your own teaching material as a block in the lesson. Have a piece as MusicXML, exported from MuseScore, Sibelius or Dorico? Attach it to a song in your repertoire and it appears as clean notation in the browser. MuseScore and flat.io scores can be embedded directly. Add a video of you playing the piece, or a recording at a gentler tempo, so the student knows how it should sound before they sit down at home.

The method book stays on the music stand. Musicdott doesn't replace it; it gives every student a clear list of what to practise from the book this week, with your notes alongside.

Hands separately, and actually doing it

“Left hand alone first, then bars 9–16 slowly hands together” is the kind of instruction that disappears in a notebook. In the practice list you set those steps as separate assignments. The student sees them in the student portal, starts a practice session with the timer and marks each assignment as practised. That earns XP, and practising several days in a row builds a streak. Before the lesson you can see how many minutes they practised and which assignments they worked on.

After the lesson you score each assignment yourself, on a fixed scale from “still needs practice” to “can apply it”. Over a whole year you can see which pieces are finished and which keep stalling. Parents see the lessons, the schedule and their child's progress in their own parent portal, with one login for brothers and sisters.

Scales, chords and tempo

Scales and cadences are many students' least favourite homework. A metronome block gives a concrete starting tempo, so “slowly” doesn't mean something different every week. For students who want to check how a scale or chord sits on the keys, there's the free scales tool with a keyboard view, the chord finder and the online metronome.

For pop songs and lead sheets you use the chord editor: chords above the lyrics, transposable in one go, and the student taps a chord to see which keys belong to it. Handy for the teenager who wants to accompany themselves singing, and for adult beginners who'd rather play songs than études.

Recitals and graded exams

Running a recital means building a programme, getting students to sign up and inviting parents. With events in Musicdott you create the evening and put the running order together, and students and parents RSVP from their own portal. Students can even put themselves forward to perform, and you approve them.

If you prepare students for ABRSM, Trinity or another exam board, you can set each element of the grade, from scales and arpeggios to the pieces, aural tests and sight-reading, as a separate assignment and see exactly where each student stands. Musicdott isn't connected to any exam board and doesn't enter students for exams; you build the path yourself, the way you already teach it.

Performance nerves ease when students hear themselves more often. With “Ask your teacher” a student sends you a short video of a run-through at home, and you can respond on tempo, dynamics or the bar where they always stop. A couple of those moments before a recital or exam make a real difference.

Music studio management for the whole year

Piano studios tend to have a full week of recurring lessons. The schedule in Musicdott works with weekly series and school holidays, parents can report an absence from the parent portal, and students add their lessons to their phone calendar with an iCal link. Read more about lesson scheduling software and student management software. With the Manager add-on at €19.95 a month, new students can book a trial lesson online and you keep a waiting list.

Teach singing, violin or recorder as well? See vocal schools, violin schools and recorder schools. Every block type is on the lesson platform page, plans and prices on the pricing page. And if some students simply don't practise, our article on why students don't practise is a good place to start.