215-600-3556
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Here are just a few of the many teachers offering Piano lessons in Philadelphia . Whether you are looking for beginner guitar lessons for your kids, or are an adult wanting to improve your skills, the instructors in our network are ready to help you now!
Instruments: Piano Organ Keyboard
Music is the "bread" of life. What would life be without it? I believe everyone should be a participant. Everyone should play an instrument and that anyone can do it. My favorite is the piano and organ although I have played clarinet and sax in bands. Why the piano? It is definitely the most complete form of expression. Name any other instrument in an orchestra and as an individual creation of rhythm or melody it is incomplete without one or more other instruments to play with it. Read More
Instruments: Piano
For beginner students, I first start to see how they learn best if its at a slower pace or if they can absorb quickly. Once I can understand them and their learning habits, I will start by teaching the basics such as how to count, the names of the notes, etc. Understanding the basics is really important so something I will want to make sure is that they understand why the notes are split in a measure a certain way(for example). Read More
Instruments: Piano Violin Viola
For the beginning student, I typically suggest a collection of specific studies from an array of sources, some designed simply for technique and others for the development of musical understanding. Naturally, these depend on the individual and their needs. I am most dedicated to facilitating the needs of each individual student and providing them the ability to express their musical ideas clearly and easily. For more advanced students, I will focus on honing technical proficiency and challenging them with new repertoire, preparing them for new musical opportunities, such as youth orchestras, chamber music, recitals, and competitions to further their growth. Read More
Instruments: Piano Guitar Voice Bass Guitar Synthesizer Ukulele Keyboard Acoustic Guitar
I am a super passionate and motivated music educator who loves working with students all ages. I graduated from Albright College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Industry Studies. My major encompasses all aspects of the music industry including business, entertainment law, education, songwriting, and music theory. I have performed on campus as well as in the Burlington, NJ area as a busker. I also sang in the chamber choir where I got to sing at the Empire State Building and visited Aaron Coplands house in New York. Read More
Instruments: Piano Guitar Bass Guitar Mandolin Keyboard Electric Guitar Acoustic Guitar
My teaching experiance has been mainly one one one. I've never given group lessons mainly because you can't totally focus on the student when there are several people involved. The best teaching/learning situation is the individual lesson where the focus is on one person. All my lessons are with one individual. More than one creates distraction and breaks the contenuity of the learning experiance. My experiance has been with grade school students, College age, middle aged and also senior citizens. Read More
Instruments: Piano Guitar Drums Bass Guitar Mallet Percussion Orchestral Percussion Conga Latin Percussion
For beginning students, I normally start with Alfred's Drum Method. This book works on the fundamentals of reading snare drum music and basic technique. Once the students grasps the basics on reading and playing with a metronome then we tend to move to Tommy Igoe's Groove Essentials (while still working on the Alfred's Method). After the student has began to play with the audio tracks and have succesfully gone through a few lessons from Groove Essentials then we begin to work on some solo repertoire and personal favorites as well. Read More
Instruments: Piano
I keep a "Piano Homework Assignment" Word document for each student on my laptop which I can then email to you after your lesson is over for reference during the week. A usual assignment would consist of a "Warm Up" section where we focus on hand position or scales or technique, a "Lesson Book" or "Repertoire" section where we work on new pieces or songs, a "Theory" section for written assignments, a "Fun" list for pieces we are done with but want to keep playing just for fun and then a number of special sections depending on student interest. Special sections might be things like - improvisation, composition, playing by ear, recital or competition prep, exam prep, sight reading, ear training, etc. I'm comfortable in few method series but I prefer Faber Piano Adventures for typical beginning children and The Music Tree for very young beginners. I try to make sure each student has a piece they love every week. Read More
Instruments: Piano Organ Keyboard
Have any of your students won awards or been selected for special honors? How have they succeeded?
My students have won awards given by the New Jersey Music Teachers' Association, Arts 4 Teens, and the Haddonfield School of Performing Arts Students Competitions.
My students have received full music scholarships to Peabody Conservatory, Northwestern University, and NYU. Have been accepted to Princeton University as a music minor, and have received a grant for music study at Chicago University. Other students have been accepted as piano oerformance majors to Rowan University, Temple University, and the Berklee School of Music for jazz studies.
While not all my students entered the field of music, some have become teachers in their own right, a film score composer, and a well-known television performer as jazz pianist.
Do you use specific teaching methods or books? (Ex: Alfred, Bastion, Suzuki, Hal Leonard) Why did you choose them if you did?
John Thompson - it is comprehensive, address the basic issues of piano technique, and
helps greatly to instill a love of music in the student
Bastien - contains attractive music that students enjoy, teaches chords and theory as well
basic techniques
Hal Leonard - has a fine adult course that includes techniques, a sophisticated approach to
musicality, and progresses in simple but effective steps.
I will emphasize, however, that if a student has had some lessons and is already into a particular book, I generally encourage the student to continue in that particular method until it is finished. I then shift the student over to one of the above methods.
If you have a Music Degree, what is it in (Performance, Education, Musicology, Theory, Composition, etc) and why did you choose that degree?
My degrees, Bachelor of Music and Master of Science, are both in piano performance.
I chose the music degrees because piano performance was my strong suit. I was fascinated by the piano from an early age, and was playing piano be ear long before I took formal lessons. I also composed many small pieces for the piano before taking lessons.
My degrees included extensive study of music education practices, and a thorough groundwork in music theory.
I also have 40 credits toward a DMA in music composition from Temple University.
I also studied the organ at the Eastman School of Music and play professionally at a Roman Catholic church.
If you play more than one instrument, how did you decide to start playing the second? (Or 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc)!
Even while I was still starting piano I was always fascinated by the organ. I suppose I enjoyed the variety of sounds the organ could produce. When my parents took me to visit
a friend of theirs who owned an organ I would sit down at the instrument and stay there until the visit was over! Later, in high school, I taught myself the instrument, even landing
a job at our local church. I taught myself to use the pedals and learned Bach's Toccata and
Fugue in D minor on my own. It wasn't very good but later, at Eastman, I took formal lessons and within a short time was playing all the virtuoso pieces fluently. I still play the organ at a Catholic Church and enjoy it very much as my second instrument.
When did you decide to become a professional musician? Was it a gradual decision or was there a defining moment for you?
I decided to become a professional musician when I was a sophomore in High School. This was when I discovered that playing the piano could be a form of expression. I also realized the value of being able to hear a piece of music and then, with practice, be able to render it on the piano and enjoy the music as played by myself instead of someone else. I would ask my teacher if I could play, for example, Copland's El Salon Mexico, to which he replied I was not yet ready, yet, I went ahead and learned it on my own! I always enjoyed playing music that I already knew and I always try to afford my students the opportunity to play music that is familiar to them.
25 Years
Since We Started
41,456+
Happy Customers
10,769
Cities with Students
3,123
Teachers in Network
Trusted as the industry leader, for over 21 years the teachers in our network have been providing Piano lessons in Philadelphia to students of all ages and abilities.
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