Piano lessons for adults

Since you are reading this article, it’s clear to me that you are interested in exploring jazz. Let me guess if you are one of the following. You are either…
* looking to jump-start their jazz piano playing or wanting to beef up their skills.
* sick and tired of playing the same stuff over and over and wants to explore the world of jazz.
* trying to learn basic jazz changes, blues scale patterns, and various licks that can be put to use right away.
* wanting to learn the 12-bar blues and alternative ways to play it.
* just hungry for more!
Am I right?
For over 7 years, we’ve taught primarily gospel music by ear. Yes, you can pick up our 300-pg home study course and find general music theory, ear-training, and various progressions from other genres, but our main focus up until now has been on gospel music.
I simply called it “drilling deep” or focusing only on one type of player. It was the classic “don’t try to please everyone” and “stick with what you know best” philosophy.
But even I’ve realized the necessity for gospel (and ALL) musicians to explore other genres as there is a lot to be discovered by doing this.
Not only do you increase your creativity by pulling chords, patterns, licks, and tricks from other places, but you break yourself away from being limited to one style of playing.
That’s why so many musicians get stuck trying to figure out why they’re playing the same stuff they were playing years ago… or worse, have gone several steps in the wrong direction due to lost interest — because they’ve realized that most songs in a particular genre follow certain patterns and once you knows them all, it gets extremely difficult to learn new patterns unless you step outside the “genre.”
And if you are like me, you will agree with me that jazz is one of the most popular genres in the world today. In many instances, it’s like the “default” style of music you end up listening to whether in an elevator, waiting in a doctor’s office, as hold music on the phone, in the background at a fancy restaurant… even at church these days as many pastors are holding gospel jazz brunches and concerts.
Heck, it’s commonly used as an adjective to describe certain ways to play other genres. You’ve probably heard musicians say “jazz that up a little” or “play that a little jazzier.”
That’s why I’m finally answering the thousands of musicians who have literally begged us to teach the basics of jazz by ear — and this page reveals everything you need to know to start playing jazz now.
Are You “One Dimensional?”
Who wants to be stuck playing the same chords and songs over and over again?
I’m sure nobody… if they can help it.
No one wants to be labeled by others as “one-dimensional”. And to be honest, knowing only one style of music is pretty boring. And as a musician, excitement and unpredictability is the name of the game!
I mean, adding even just one style of music to your playing, especially one as vibrant as jazz, will have an exponential effect on you, forever.
Heck, just being able to understand jazz will ignite your creative side and allow you to accelerate your improvisational skills that can be used to instill your own personal touch in literally everything you play… regardless of the genre.

Possibly because it taps into our emotions in a way that technology and science, which increasingly inhabit our lives, DO NOT.
Then again, perhaps music simply offers an escape from tensions of an increasingly pressurized society.
Too often, however, the repertory of the traditional theory programs strikes you as arcane, foreign (literally), and unrelated to the music that commands your day-to-day attention.
This situation has been a long time brewing, and it often leads students to question the relevance of music theory to their personal musical goals.
The result is a fundamental disconnect, and if students are not reachable, then they are not teachable.
An adult piano lesson program should attempt to bridge that disconnect by engaging YOU on a familiar ground (though music that surrounds YOUR daily life) and leading YOU toward the body of art music that comprises your heritage.
Part of this effort entails a recognition that popular music and jazz can be vehicles for conveying music of what traditional theory teaches and that apart from its own intrinsic merit that repertory can serve as a conduit to other musical styles.
WHY MUSIC THEORY?
Music has probably always come easily to you. I mean, you could always sing a Nursery Rhyme in tune when you were a child… you’re lucky!
If it has, then you probably have difficulty understanding how utterly mysterious it can be to others, that can’t sing in tune.
The fact is that the special mix of physical and mental attributes that translate into musical talent is a fit given to relatively few of the more than six billion inhabitants of this planet.
It makes you a member of a special group that sees and hears in music the things most others do not. Your decision to further you study of music indicates your desire to express yourself creatively.
MUSIC ENGAGES US PHYSICALLY
Music engages us physically (muscle memory and coordination are necessary to sing or to play an instrument) and mentally (we read music, we memorize it – we feel it).
Music theory aims to deepen our mental involvement. That’s necessary because to communicate all that YOU hear and FEEL in music, YOU need to understand it on may levels. A deeper and broader understanding will make you a more effective player.
MUSIC ENGAGES US EMOTIONALLY
Just remember, that human emotions are translated into musical motion. Our bodies express these internal feelings through posture, gestures, and movements of various kinds.
Some are automatic, spontaneous and others are the result of thought or will.
What is the first instrument that must be trained in music?
The human body!