If You've  Had Lessons Before...

You might imagine that enrolling in piano lessons means you’re going to practice scales ad nauseam, then be tasked with difficult sheet music to take home and read, playing songs you’ve never heard of before (so no idea if they are “right”). Then you have to find time during your already busy work week to “practice”...and when you come back to your lesson you have the performance anxiety of showing and proving that you did what you were supposed to do. 

That’s the prevailing wisdom: that if you want to play piano, you have to suffer long lonely hours with boring scales played over and over again and to sit and struggle each week reading music rather than…playing! 

I too, experienced this growing up. I went to piano lessons, brought pieces I was actually really excited about, began trying to play said pieces…and then could hear behind me…SNORING! My teacher was so bored he literally started SNORING! Had I not also been a singer, driven by passionate curiosity to understand how my voice could make music and how the piano could help me, my dream of playing might have died right there. 

So here’s the problem with the way typical piano lessons go: lots of people learn piano and enjoy playing…without learning scales, without struggling through difficult sheet music. In fact, that’s how I learned. I loved it, and I quit piano lessons because I knew, even as a 12 year old, that a bored asleep teacher was not the way to learn.  

It’s not your fault if you’ve taken lessons before and didn’t have a great experience. Video game designers knew something that science and schooling is only now beginning to realize: learning is more effective when it's fun, creative and social...hence why you’ll have a hard time pulling a teenager away from his video game practice but he’ll take any excuse to skip the math drills. 

As a vocal coach for the last 10 years,  I would often get asked by singers to have some help with piano. Singers who had taken piano before had such a better experience, that soon piano lessons took on a life of their own. You may wonder why...

Singers have a unique challenge in learning piano: they have to be able to play piano, while singing, while keeping their voice free and easy, while interacting with their bandmates, the crowd, etc…AND enjoy it, otherwise your audience will know! 

So to learn piano as a singer, you can’t have you eyes glued to the sheet music, shoulders hunched, grimacing through each chord. You either had fun or had to leave the piano totally out of the picture. So we learned. Through fun, play, discovery and creativity. 

What was discovered over the last 10 or so years of teaching piano and voice…was a whole new way to experience learning the piano, that works for you, dear aspiring piano-player, whether or not you have any interest in singing. This new way to learn has the fun is baked in. Yes you’ll learn how to read music, yes you’ll learn both pieces you know and don’t know and you can start as a total beginner. 

BUUT what if I don’t have time to practice at home?!

Do you have to practice your name each day so you can remember it when someone asks? No, of course not. If what you learned in class is really learned, then you’ll be able to pick up somewhere close to where you left off last week. The practice you’ll experience in class will be of far better quality than what you can do at home. In class, you’ll not only learn how to play piano, you’ll learn what good practice looks and feels like...and you'll learn how to learn.  Spoiler alert: great practice feels FUN! 

Over time you’ll find yourself wanting to play at home, because you’re going to have so many great experiences with the piano in class! 

We don’t work on the practice habit, we work on the desire to practice through having thrilling musical experiences. 

The good news is, you don’t have to believe any of this. If you add your email below, you’ll get a free class where you can experience this for yourself. So what are you waiting for? Sign up below, or keep reading…

What’s the secret sauce? How are Lessons &  the Adult Piano Class with Chris different? 

You’ll learn in a way that uses the power of play, backed by neuroscience, to help you learn more easily and have more fun…for example…

Where-as typical lessons will have you play the same thing over and over again, like hearing the same song so many times you’re tired of hearing it, the adult piano class you’ll apply your own creativity and variations, so that you hear something, or feel something new with every rep. 

Where typical lessons guilt/cajole you into practice between lessons, the Adult Piano Class will go through a discovery process, to see what songs, what sounds, what aspects of music and piano playing really fire you up. As a singer, my favorite singers super inspired me to sing, so when I went to piano, I was surprised that my teacher never asked me how what I was learning made me feel. If you’re doing math drills, you don’t need to feel emotion from them…but if you’re learning a song?!  Hell yeah. Music is all about that feeling. 

Typical piano lessons are sheet music focused, which means that if you ever have a friend who plays guitar, and wants you to play piano with her, you’ll be lost. With the Adult Piano Class and lessons, you’ll learn both the power of playing through sheet music, and throwing out the sheet music and playing with others, from day one. The good news is when you learn both, you’ll be better at playing by heart, but also from the heart.

Okay but I don’t have a piano...

The SynergisticStudio rents out keyboards at a really low rate per month, so you don’t have to wait to get a keyboard before you can start going for your piano playing dreams.  Just contact Chris below and you can get set up. Although practice is not expected between classes (because what you’ll learn will be remembered the next class) you’re gonna wanna play at home most likely. It's just too tough to keep your hands out of that music cookie jar, ya know? ;) 

If You've Never Had Lessons Before...

You'll be able to start from scratch, learning a couple simple songs within just a couple lessons! As a self-taught piano player that later took lessons and classes in college, I saw the disparity between how I naturally learned piano, and how it was taught. So in piano lessons, you'll skip the long lecture on jargon and get right to playing. As you build up your skills, concepts will make so much more sense because you've already played songs where you can see the concepts in action.

If You're Not Sure You'll Actually Practice Enough to Make Progress... 

Piano lessons with Chris are designed to get you A TON of practice within the lesson. So you don't practice at home, you PLAY!  

If You Are Self-Taught or  You've Taken a Few Lessons Before...

You'll find a refreshing hybrid of independence and guidance within lessons.  Having been self-taught and later taken piano lessons and college classes, Chris saw the benefits and drawbacks of self-taught piano...and lessons/classes. Assembling the best of both worlds, piano lessons with Chris create the right balance of independence and guidance so that you progress faster and more enjoyably in your piano playing than you would on your own or with typical piano lessons.

Group Classes Give You an Instant Group of Music Friends + Play Songs You Know 

Like group exercise classes, where you get to join others, Synergistic Piano classes gives you the best of 1-on-1 and group: You'll get individualized attention within every class, but also have opportunities to play with others. Here's a sneak peak! 

You'll Get Enough Practice in Classes Alone, to Be Able to Play Piano 

The way most people experience their first music lessons goes a little something like this: they are taught how to do something, then they have to go home and practice it, then come back and show the teacher that they "can do it". With Synergistic Piano Lessons, you learn and  practice and  play in class. So when you go home, you enjoy what you've already learned!