Home Piano Lessons in the Crouch End, Muswell Hill and Finsbury Park vicinity
Hello there, I'm Alvin.
I am a piano teacher offering lessons at your home. You can also have remote lessons via Zoom, Skype or Google Meet.
I travel to Crouch End, Hornsey, Muswell Hill, Islington, Finsbury Park, Highgate and Wood Green. The range of postcodes I cover includes N4, N5, N6, N8, N10, N17, N19 and N22.
You'll learn to play adaptations of well-known music, across genres such as classical, pop, rock, anime, metal and jazz. The music you'll play in lessons is familiar, current, and at a suitable level of difficulty.
You'll also learn how to improvise your own version of existing songs.
If you like, you can prepare for
Why Learn the Piano With Me?
You'll learn positively, with music tailored to your abilities.
We'll work from music that you can play and move on to more difficult repertoire as your skills and concentration improve. The focus is positive, on what you can do and what you can aim for.
You'll develop your current piano skills so you can continually play harder, impressive-sounding music. I'll also show you how you can improvise your own versions of your favourite songs.
You'll get to play music you like.
Piano playing requires co-ordination of six or seven independent tasks, and it is always reassuring and satisfying to know you are playing the correct notes.
Playing songs you are familiar with also helps with improve the reading of musical notation, because you'll have already have an idea of what the music should sound like, and hence know what the written notes, rhythmic symbols and expression marks are trying to convey.
In my own time, I write out and arrange your favourite songs at a suitable level of difficulty for you to play, at no extra charge to you.
Do you know any other piano teacher who does that on a regular basis?
I charge reasonable rates and am flexible.
My rates vary depending on your location, but they are comparable to rates charged by local music services for children's piano lessons in schools. The current rate charged by Haringey Music Service is £33.00 per hour for the academic year 2020-21.
In some cases - such as when siblings have lessons, and if I'm already in your area - I charge the school lesson rate, or less !
I teach in areas such as Crouch End, Hornsey, Finsbury Park, Muswell Hill and Wood Green, and my travel costs are shared among students. Please contact me to ask - my rates are frequently lower than most teachers who do home visits.
I have no cancellation fees.
I am particularly understanding if you need to cancel at short notice (e.g. due to child illness). Or maybe you've suddenly remembered about another appointment - as long as I've not appeared at your doorstep, that's fine!
Other music schools or tutors may require you to give 24 hours' notice for cancelling a lesson. I don't - no one plans an illness in advance! - and I understand that life sometimes just gets a little bit complicated for our liking!
Need a recap?
Music you like
A positive learning process
Very reasonable rates
No cancellation fees, no contract, no notice period!
Today's blog snippet - see more in the Posts section!
The piano is one of the most versatile instruments. Because it is able to sound many notes simultaneously, it makes both a good solo instrument and an accompanying instrument. It can fill in the background for a solo line instrument like the flute, trumpet or voice, or hold its own melody line in the right hand while the left hand plays an accompanying pattern.
While it may not be as portable as instruments that perform the same solo and accompanying functions, like guitars, the larger range of the instrument, as well as the ability to play notes differently within the same chord - some notes detached and some held, at the same time - means it offers more possibilities. The piano can also switch between textures, giving different types of sound from thin accompanying lines to thick, fully-weighted chords.
How many notes could you play on the piano simultaneously? Ten? Assuming you play one note with one finger, then yes - ten. But if you use one finger to play two notes next to each other, you could playing some jazz chords with eight or nine notes, with just one hand, making it closer to seventeen or eighteen notes at a time. Try working out G Maj7 sus6 sus2!
The piano was a favourite with composers of the Romantic era who used it as an accompanying instrument for solo songs, called Leider. If you watch the Cardiff singer of the World competition, you may notice they have a Leider category. The piano displayed its versatility in leider, switching between various roles as protagonist and accompanist to the voice while demonstrating the full extent of its capabilities.
If you are asked to accompany someone else using the piano, remember that this requires a change of mindset from being a soloist. If you are playing the piano, you would bring out the tune (normally in the right hand) and play it louder than the accompanying parts.
But if you are accompanying someone else, the music you play is likely to feature accompanying chords in the right, and bass notes in the left. Playing the right hand loudly is going to make it too top heavy. Instead, when you are playing at the same time as the soloist, bring out the bass line in the music as a counterbalance to the soloist's tune. In terms of chords, they are the lowest priority. But if there are intermittent passages where the soloist does not play and you have the lead, then bring out the melodic interest in the music as you would if you were playing it on your own.
Playing the piano as an accompanist is a skill in itself. It doesn't mean you are relegated to the role of lackey, but that you have to continually make adjustments to your role - and if done right, the efforts that you make will really enhance the music.