App User Guide
Everything you need to manage your student's lessons, swaps, and makeups, all in one place.
Miss Melanie's Music Studio
Piano, woodwind, and brasswind lessons
A Message from Melanie
Dear families,
Teaching your children and a few of you as well, is the joy of my working life. Watching a student travel from first notes to real music never gets old, and building that year after year with each family is why I do what I do.
For a long time I ran the studio's scheduling by hand and by heart: a text here, a phone call there, an email chain to sort out a cancellation or find a makeup time. I never wanted to be rigid, so I kept everything informal. But as the studio has grown, that informal approach quietly took over more and more of my evenings and weekends. Last-minute changes, open-ended cancellations, and all the back and forth to coordinate them were taking time and energy I would far rather pour into preparing and teaching lessons. In an average week, I spend 10 to 15 hours, mostly after the last lesson has ended, coordinating makeups and emailing. This is on top of a full teaching schedule of over 40 hours a week across 53 students. I also came to realize that "anything goes" is not actually fair. It is not fair to the students who plan ahead, to the families waiting for an open time, or to me.
So I have done two things. First, this app: a simple home for your family's schedule, where you can see your lessons, cancel or reschedule, swap times with another family, and claim makeup times yourself, with no phone tag and no waiting on me to reply. Everything lives in one place and is visible to both of us.
Second, for the first time I have written the studio's policies down, the expectations I sometimes communicated verbally when a student signs up, but never put on paper. You will find them in the studio's Cancellation & Reschedule Policies, available on the studio website under Studio Policies, covering how cancellations, makeups, and scheduling changes work. They take effect in Fall 2026. They are not meant to be strict for their own sake. They are meant to be clear, fair, and sustainable, so that I can keep giving every student my very best.
None of this changes what matters most: the music, and the relationship we build in each lesson. If anything, handling the logistics cleanly means more of my attention lands exactly where it belongs, on your child. Please take a few minutes to read through this guide, and never hesitate to reach out if anything is not clear.
With gratitude, and real excitement for the year ahead,
Melanie
Yes
No — need another time
Texts and notifications
Studio communications. Along with this app, the studio uses a simple text-message (SMS) service to let you know when a waitlist time slot opens up, to pass along swap requests from other families, and to confirm your makeups. Melanie will still send individual emails for other matters, but you should expect most scheduling messages to come by text.
When there is a swap offer for you, an open makeup time, or a confirmation, the studio sends you a text. Tap the link in the text to go straight to the action, with no login needed.
Texts come from (952) 649-6248, an automated number that Melanie does not monitor. If you need to reach her, please call or text her directly. Reply STOP anytime to stop texts, or HELP for help.
User's Guide for the App
A short walkthrough of the app, screen by screen. Jump to any section below, or use the arrows at the bottom to move through them in order.
A quick three minute video on the app's key features.
Signing in
The studio app signs you in with a magic link. There are no passwords to set or remember, ever. Each time, you enter your email and you'll receive a one-time sign-in link in your inbox. Tap that link and you're in.
First-time login
On the studio website, tap Student Portal in the top menu, then Parent / Student Login. Enter your email, then tap the sign-in link you'll receive in your email. The very first time you login, you will also be asked for your family's Login Security Code, which Melanie gives you. Enter it once and your account is linked to your family. One login covers all of your children.
Tap Parent / Student Login
Subsequent logins
After that first time, signing in is just the magic link: enter your email, tap the link you'll receive, and you're in. No security code and no password needed.
More than one guardian
Every guardian in the system can sign in with their own email and will see the same family schedule. If you would like more than one guardian to receive text and email notifications, let Melanie know each person's name, email, and phone number, and she will add them.
Setting your text and email preferences
On your first sign-in you can add your mobile number and choose whether to receive text alerts and email. Text alerts are how time offers reach you quickly, when a swap is available or a lesson time opens up, so we recommend turning them on.
Your home screen
When you sign in, you are taken to your dashboard, which has four tiles:
- Calendar: your next lesson is displayed at the bottom of the tile. Click the tile to view your calendar, lessons, open times and make changes. This is where you would go if you wanted to change a lesson that's a few days out, when you are planning ahead.
- Needs You: anything waiting on your answer, like a swap another family offered you.
- Activity: your history of swaps, cancellations, and makeups.
- Profile: your contact details and settings.
A small dot on a tile means something new is waiting for your attention.
Your home screen
Your calendar
The calendar shows a week at a glance. Here is what you will see:
- Your lessons appear with your student's name.
- Times another family holds are marked "Booked". For privacy, you never see other families' names.
- Times Melanie has free show as green boxes labeled "Open". You can move a lesson into an open slot.
- Each of your lessons is marked Online or In-studio.
To make a change, tap your student's lesson. That opens the options covered in The Big Change (switch to online, swap, move to an open time, or cancel).
Needs You
The Needs You tile is where anything waiting on your answer shows up, most often a swap another family has offered you. When something is there, you will see a dot on the tile on your home screen.
Open it to see the details, then accept or decline. These offers are time-sensitive: if you do not reply, the request simply expires on its own and nothing about your lesson changes.
When there is nothing to answer, the tile reads "You're all set."
A swap another family has offered you
Activity
The Activity page is your full history: every swap, reschedule, cancellation, and makeup, with the date, what happened, and who did it. Use the filter chips at the top to narrow the list:
- Everything every change, newest first.
- You can act only items that still need something from you, like rebooking a cancelled lesson.
- Swaps trades of lesson times with another family.
- Reschedules lessons you moved to a new time, and lessons switched to online.
- Cancellations lessons you cancelled, and whether a makeup is on the waitlist.
- Makeups makeup lessons you have booked, with your count for the term.
If a past change still needs something from you, like rebooking a cancelled lesson, a button appears in the Your Options column.
Makeups and the waitlist
When you cancel a lesson, your student automatically joins the makeup waitlist. You do not need to do anything else. As open times come up, you will be notified and can claim one right in the app.
How an opening is offered depends on timing:
- If the open slot is not on the same day: the slot is offered to everyone on the waitlist by text message. To keep it fair, and not simply give it to whoever sees the text first, the messages go out at fixed times, in the morning if a slot opened the night before, and in the evening if it opened during the day. Everyone who receives the text has 2 hours to respond. At the end of that window the system looks at everyone who responded in the affirmative to the question "does this time work for you?" and confirms the student highest in the waitlist order. Everyone who responded will hear the result within a few hours.
- If the open slot is on the same day: there is no time to wait, so it is first-come, first-served. Whoever claims it first gets it.
Melanie will help arrange up to 2 makeups per student each term, and will do her best to clear the waitlist before the term ends. Full details are in the Cancellation & Reschedule Policies, under Cancellations and makeups.
You can see every makeup at a glance here in Activity: tap the Makeups filter to show just your makeup lessons, each with its original time, the new time, and your count for the term (for example, "makeup 1 of 2").
Your profile and account
Your Profile holds your contact information, your communication preferences, and your Login Security Code.
Your profile
Key dates and staying in touch
Recitals, contests, and festivals are posted under Key Dates in the top menu of the studio website. For anything the app does not cover, email Melanie at [email protected].
Questions and troubleshooting
Check your spam folder. The link expires after about an hour, so if it has been a while, request a new one. Make sure you are using the email address Melanie has on file for you.
That is your family's Login Security Code, which links your account the first time you sign in. Ask Melanie for it.
One login covers your whole family. You will see each of your children, and you can switch between them from your dashboard.
You sign in the same way, with your own email and your Login Security Code.
You may have replied STOP to an earlier text; reply START to turn them back on. Otherwise contact Melanie and she can reset your preferences. Then log in to the app and you will be prompted to opt in to texts and email from the studio.
No. Texts come from (952) 649-6248, an automated number that Melanie does not monitor. If you need to reach her, call or text her directly.
Cancel the lesson in the app so your student goes on the waitlist. You will never be penalized for a genuine emergency (see the Cancellation & Reschedule Policies, Cancellations and makeups). There is no need to call Melanie; the app will notify her by text.