Christina Moore, mother of two

“My son has truly enjoyed taking piano lessons with Chantel. She makes it fun, and is always encouraging. I love listening to them play, laugh, and get to know each other.”

Kamber Goff, mother of six

“Chantel’s piano lessons inspire my children’s interest and creativity. They’re coming up with their own musical ideas, playing duets together with ease, and getting excited about writing their own pieces and learning to play new ones. I’m seeing them become more musical all the time.”

Play to learn, learn to play!

Learn to play, listen, understand, improvise, and read music through playful, expressive and creative activity

Go beyond decoding notation:

Imagine using a computer keyboard to copy down a sentence in a foreign language you don’t speak.

You might be able to push the right buttons, but did you understand what you just wrote?

In most traditional piano lessons, students are taught just that way— to push keys corresponding to symbols on the page, creating sounds they don’t truly understand. Eventually it becomes difficult or tedious to keep doing this, and students quit.

But there’s a better way.

In lessons with me, students learn musical patterns— which are like the words of a language— and then use those patterns right away at the piano. We put the patterns together to make musical “sentences,” and students use the patterns to make their own musical ideas. Students are learning the building blocks of music the way a foreign language learner learns the vocabulary of that language.

We reinforce all of this musical learning with expressive and creative activities: improvising and exploring at the piano, creating musical stories, singing and chanting the patterns, and moving to the music.

When the patterns are firmly set in the student’s music vocabulary, we learn to read them. Then, they are not merely decoding symbols, but reading what they already understand.

Piano classes by age group

Piano Partners
4-9 years old

$150/month

45 minutes each week paired with another student, overlapping with another piano class for 15 minutes

Piano Duets
Ages 9 and older

$220/month

45 minutes - 60 minutes each week, overlapping with another student or class for 15 - 30 minutes

Sing and Play bundle:
Ages 9 and older

+$160/month

Want to learn to sing, too? Add on 30 minutes of voice for an additional $160/mo

Piano students work in groups of 2-4. This way they can develop the skills necessary to coordinate with other musicians and play together. They also learn from each other in every lesson.

FAQs

  • Each lesson includes “activity time,” in which students hear songs and chants in a variety of meters and tonalities and practice echoing fundamental musical patterns, moving with flow and rhythm, singing resting tones, and improvising with their voice. We also do work to become familiar with the keyboard, prepare our bodies for healthy and correct playing, and learn to play performance pieces by rote (that is, by listening and thinking before doing, rather than by reading). To learn why we learn by rote, please visit this part of my site.

  • I use a series called Music Moves for Piano by Marilyn Lowe, the only piano method based on Edwin Gordon’s Music Learning Theory. To learn more about Music learning Theory, visit this website.

  • The most important component of home practice is listening. In fact, with beginner students, listening is mandatory and practice is optional. Practice time at the piano will include practicing performance pieces and also creativity and improvisation work.