r/guitarteachers • u/codebubb • Apr 30 '26
What do guitar tutors here use to manage students, notes, and payments?
Hey all — I’ve been speaking to a few guitar tutors recently and trying to understand how people manage students, lesson notes, files (tabs/PDFs etc), and payments.
The reason I’m asking is that I’ve been helping a guitar tutor I know build a simple tool to organise this stuff, and it made me curious how other tutors actually handle it day to day.
What’s your current setup like? Spreadsheets, apps, WhatsApp, something else?
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u/IndependentChance674 29d ago
MusicDesk - so easy to manage student schedule and also to bill families on a regular basis via credit card. Such a life saver.
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u/codebubb 26d ago
Nice. Looks like it's only US/Canada at the moment. Do you use it for anything else or just billing?
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u/aeropagitica Apr 30 '26
Apple numbers for payments;
Apple notes for songs learned by date, and learning points to address;
Guitar pro for transcriptions;
Transcribe! For transcriptions;
GarageBand for demos and backing tracks. GarageBand for
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u/codebubb Apr 30 '26
Cheers, thanks for that! Is that setup working well for you? I like that you create backing tracks 😎 Is that for students to improvise over?
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u/aeropagitica Apr 30 '26
Yes, it's fine - it's a logical workflow to make helping students as easy as possible.
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u/codebubb May 01 '26
Good stuff - one last thing, what about sharing your GP files with students? Do you email/whatsapp/dropbox for each student?
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u/G8R1ST Apr 30 '26
I use Bobclass app to manage timetables and most other stuff. I think it's great.
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u/codebubb Apr 30 '26
Ah nice, I hadn’t heard of that before but it looks like a useful tool. Is there anything in particular that it does well and anything it doesn’t do which you wished it did?
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u/Rush2_ Apr 30 '26
not just a guitar tutor but a guitar student-teacher (I'd consider myself both),
I teach alongside my own Guitar Teacher at his own practice. Support your Locals!
For actual "File" Files. I have a folder on my desktop that keeps .gp files, audio files, PDF files, etc. Since I do lots of prep for students during the week and teach Fridays and Weekends, I work from home the majority of the time, which lets me keep track of all of that, although I'm thinking of moving that folder to an external drive for portability.
Transcriptions - Guitar Pro 8
PDF - Adobe, specifically for the cloud storage aspect.
Planning - Notion Programs
Actual Transactions - Square
Recording tracks, examples, etc. - Ableton Live
For Attendance, Estimated Payment, and Scheduling, I use the Notion Programs. (Notion Mail, Notion Calendar, Notion)
This allows you to make spreadsheets that coordinate to your calendar, which then coordinate to my estimated payment, which I then report to my boss for him to pay me using the actual payment system. we use Square for Billing.
Notion also links to all calendars imaginable and syncs across all services, Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, Etc. So anything I put in Notion, my family can see on the Family Apple Calendar (student who lives at home, very important they know where I am! )
As much as I love using physical notes, they are super easy to misplace in piles of music, and take forever, in my opinion, to put together into a working system. Keeping things electronic lets me have time for other stuff, like practicing and learning on my own, haha
I hope this helps! If you want more specifics, like how I set these things up, shoot me a msg and I'll be happy to help!
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u/codebubb May 01 '26
Oh wow, thanks for the detailed break — really appreciate you taking the time to explain it all.
Sounds like you’ve put together a pretty well-structured system across a few tools.
Are there any parts of that setup (like maybe using Notion for notes or something) that feel a bit clunky or that you’ve had to “work around” over time?
Or does it all run pretty smoothly for you day-to-day?
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u/Rush2_ May 01 '26
No Problem!
I haven't found anything super clunky in my setup that I feel needs an update or a workaround. Since I don't handle billing myself (I am just technically a contractor), it may feel a bit more clunky with personally attending to that aspect. But I have no doubt there are more tools to make it simpler.
For the notes aspect, I just ask my students what they want to learn for the next lesson and simply write it down on the notes app on my phone. Works fine that way! That also eliminates any worry of having to find them something that you think they'll be into, just to be shot down since you didn't write it down and forgot lol (been there, done that)
I'm gonna upload (a) screenshot(s) from when I first started teaching last year and used this system to manage just a few clients, just to show you the way I kinda use the UI
You'll see, my client in the first column pays 30, and I get paid 20; the clients in the second column were actually a dual lesson (father and son at the same time), so they pay 35, and I get 25. I used the Notion AI assistant to then make a calculation segment, which assigns a value to each column, and then adds the total. Then, when it's time for me to submit my client attendance for the week, I simply tell my teacher what I have in my spreadsheet. He double-checks with billing, then I get paid.
Also, this is extra but useful for anyone who reads this essay of a reply, or if you're a teacher who has a workstation for guitar work:
I'm not sure if the tutor you're assisting has a sort of at-home workstation, but I've found buying a Stream Deck to use Guitar Pro 8 speeds up my work like crazy and is 100% worth the price.
https://www.elgato.com/us/en/p/stream-deck
This is one of my pages. I programmed this one for Guitar Pro using custom icons.
This is also good for a recording kinda studio workspace. I can program this little device to switch my audio settings on a whim, and I can make all my audio go to my IEMs instead of my computer headphones, etc.. when using Ableton or other DAWs. This can speed up transitioning from workspace to guitar space incredibly quickly.
I also play for a community and school jazz band, and since our MD for the school band also does extra-curricular community bands. I tab out the pieces we do, since he does the same material with the others, just at a slower pace. (and with (a) guitarist(s) who cant read standard). This saves LOTS of time with expression text, etc., for long, big band charts.
This system also helps me with stuff outside of teaching. For instance, I play sporadic Musical Theater Gigs outside of teaching, Big Band, and school, of course. So being able to hook up my Helix Multi-FX pedal to my computer, and listen to the rehearsal tracks for shows or for the band in my IEM's while still being able to stop and look up videos, or pause and mark my music, is invaluable. Before I had this system, my space was so much messier, and I found I played guitar a lot less, and let all my expensive gear become paperweights because I didn't want to disconnect and then reconnect everything every time I wanted to play.
Hope this helps!
holy essay lol.......
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u/codebubb 26d ago
Haha! Thanks for the essay 😀 Yeah, my own guitar tutor uses a Stream Deck when putting tabs together as well - seems to whizz through it so definitely think it's a time-saving tool!
Interesting what you say about previously forgetting to write down notes and worrying about "something that you think they'll be into" for the lessons, as that's one of the exact same problems my tutor was having until we automated it.
I couldn't see your images, but I think I get the idea, thanks!
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u/LonerismLonerism May 01 '26
MyMusicStaff handles everything
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u/codebubb May 01 '26
That’s really helpful — I’ve seen a few people mention MyMusicStaff.
Out of curiosity, what parts of it do you find work really well for you day-to-day?
And are there any bits you’ve had to work around or still handle outside of it?
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u/m0n0m0vie 5d ago
Nova Music is built for exactly this guitar-teacher pileup: student profiles, lesson notes, resources, scheduling, and payment tracking stay tied to the same family instead of living in Notion, Square, and a folder of PDFs.
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u/-XenoSine- Apr 30 '26
Notebook + pen.