Keyboard/Piano Lessons
Piano is a wonderful instrument! If you're unsure about what instrument to start with, there are many reasons why the piano is an excellent choice. Here are just a few:
It's hard to go wrong with the piano as your first instrument. Students enjoy the easy early success of creating music that sounds good while developing a strong "ear" and a solid foundation for their music education. Most students who begin with piano can easily go on to play any instrument they desire already knowing how to read music and understand both bass and treble clefs and important concepts of music theory.
If you choose to study piano with me, this is where we will start:
- Gives a solid foundation
- Sounds good right away
- Improves Coordination
It's hard to go wrong with the piano as your first instrument. Students enjoy the easy early success of creating music that sounds good while developing a strong "ear" and a solid foundation for their music education. Most students who begin with piano can easily go on to play any instrument they desire already knowing how to read music and understand both bass and treble clefs and important concepts of music theory.
If you choose to study piano with me, this is where we will start:
- Discuss your goals. Why do you want to play? What should we aim your practice towards?
examples:
-playing in a church music team
-playing classical music
-learning to jam with chords and pop songs
-learning your favorite song
-etc, etc - Create a plan. Based on your goal(s), I will work to find the most effective method to help you move toward that goal.
Having worked with various students of all ages, I am not a believer in a one size fits all approach. There are certain fundamental skills common to any method that will need to be developed. Specifically how we develop those fundamental skills is where we can be flexible.
For the traditional style approach, I currently use the "RCM Celebration Series for Piano" or the "Piano Safari" method with most beginner students. I have also used Faber's "My First Piano Adventures" with young beginners. I am familiar with other standard methods including "Alfred", "Bastien", "Suzuki", and "John Thompson" and am willing to work with transfer students coming from those methods. I do enjoy mixing various supplemental repertoire with "core" method book material and will allow the student to choose supplemental songs at their appropriate level.
If students are interested in a chord-based (non-traditional approach), I will focus on teaching them scales, keys, the number system and chord theory. They will learn how to read lead sheets and chord charts and be expected to practice along with audio tracks or online music videos of the music they are learning.