News

It’s a tragedy that nowadays people generally feel bad about their playing! It’s true! Most people who have had, sometimes years of piano lessons apologise and tell you they are not very good. Even performing musicians say they are scared of being found out for not being good enough. They often will tell you that they are just self-taught and can’t even read. Only a small percentage of our top players and some people who are blessed with a bit less of the “I care about what others think” trait f…

Just starting out with PianoEasy? Read through for a quick outline of what will happen in the early days of PianoEasy lessons.

• PianoEasy players become familiar with the mechanics of the piano and how the keys, strings, pedal and dampers work;
• PianoEasy players learn how to work best with their bodies in order to make the most beautiful music on this instrument (that isn’t very easy to adjust to your body);
• PianoEasy players become familiar with that wonderful pattern of 2 blacks and 3 blac…

Find ten new ways to reengage and motivate your piano playing!

1. Open up to a fresh take on an old piece in your repertoire.
   Pay close attention to the way you're playing each note, your posture and breathing, and think of how you are making those hammers hit the strings. Try playing loud, soft, fast, slow, sustained, snappy, straight, or swinging - see how the piece can change completely when you mix up the dynamics. You can also try changing the piece itself by adding notes or doubling up on …

Research demonstrates lots of benefits to learning piano in a " Piano Club".

Have you heard of, or tried a "Book Club"?

They are nice, aren't they? You get the motivation to read, and you get the social aspect, the different perspectives and the normalising, by sharing your experience with others.

Piano Clubs using www.pianoeasy.online are just as nice! You just work through the lessons, and get together with others and show what you have been learning. You can share what you're not sure off,…

GET INTO IT!

Hold on to your seats (and listen for that I IV V, some grace notes and riffs):

Solo piano; young Luka Sestak (a few years ahead for most of you).

Here is Diana Krall, playing a blues in Bb “Baby Baby, One More Time"

Pinetop Perkins: Slow blues 

Sweet Home Chicago

Here is Elvis playing Blue Suede Shoes, (he is using A, D and E for his I, IV and V chords.)

Oscar Peterson C Jam Blues

Stormy Monday T Bone Walker

I like this Stormy Monday by Rose Winters too:

And by Johnny Joh…

Anastasia Beasley joined PianoEasy and wrote up a short blog about having a little "PianoEasy Club"; sharing progress and mistakes, the support you receive, and the joy in learning to play together. 

At the beginning of this winter an ad crossed my Instagram feed saying I could quickly and easily learn piano. I wanted to learn piano but I kept scrolling because I thought I didn't have the time or money. The same piano studio crossed my feed again a day later, this time with a video of someone…

Whether we write music for a living or have never touched an instrument in our lives, we all have our own special songs to listen to when we're feeling down.

It's widely accepted that music can have a positive effect on your mood, which is probably why Spotify was estimated to have 159 million active users by the end of last year - everyone loves listening to music, but what about playing it?

A child psychiatry team from the University of Vermont found that children who learned instruments had…

I love all of my students. I am so proud of them and I am so happy that I have been able to help them on the joyous journey of musical self expression. Everyone grows together, we have times of fun and laughter, of exploration and celebration and of inexorable beauty when making music together surpasses anything words can say.

And then I go and ruin it all by saying something stupid like “end of year concert”. Actually I try and disguise the trauma by calling it our “end of year piano party”. H…

Need a few reasons why pianos are the best instrument there is?

• Pianos are there for you whether you’re happy or sad or however you feel.
• Pianos connect you with other people, and people from other places and times.
• Pianos don’t judge you.
• Pianos make you sound good.
• Pianos are easy to learn to play, but impossible to outgrow.
• Pianos don’t get smelly when they get a work out.
• You don’t need to give up piano when you get old.
• Pianos don’t want to talk about football.
• Pianos don’t get l…

 With PianoEasy you learn a lot. Within a few months people are playing around with their repertoires, making up their own blues or working with all their chords playing pop songs. Some people may already be composing their own song. Within two terms some people are doing lots of improvising; with the blues, with our jazz chords, with all those flat and minor chords. Within a year people are also reading quite advanced pieces and no one’s repertoire is the same. Within two years PianoEasy player…

Being completely besotted with playing the piano myself, I believe that unfortunately Western music education, that is generally focussed on teaching people to make music by teaching them how to read, has created a society where now there is this mythical idea that making music is only either for those who are mysteriously gifted or for people who started at 3 years of age and practise for 8 hours a day…

it always struck me that I commonly meet two types of piano players:

1. People who have h…