Kevin S  
Instruments: Piano, Keyboard
Styles: Classical, Pop, Rock, Blues, Folk, Country, Gospel, Musical Theater, Showtunes

For the past 25 years I have taught students from beginner through intermediate levels. I have always devoted the first third of the lesson to a good warmup and constantly introducing elements designed to improve technique. I always tell students achieving good technique allows musicians to play a lot of the music they are interested in.I have always developed a very individualized approach for each student to help maintain their interest and motivation. I believe in a reward system as well for example if a student works diligently on elements given to them to improve their technique and skills I will reward them with almost any piece of music that may be capturing their interest. I have found this to many times really keep students motivated and continuing to progress.

I have found the Progressive book series to be very effective particularly with beginners. The pages are bright and colorful with easy to understand arrangements. In addition I introduce warm up and technique tools from the get go so the student appreciates the value of practice preparation. As the student progresses the warm up tools progresses also. Typically six months to a year in training I begin to offer the student the opportunity to work on music they are interested in. Many times I use Allegro software to give the student a totally understandable arrangement no matter what level they are currently capable of. Depending on the music I often use a digital recorder adding additional instrumentation and the student receives a mixed down copy. I`ve found this to be very motivational for most students.