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!
Was it the lack of patronage? Perhaps he was denied by what in modern terms would be described as the lack of job opportunities to demonstrate his skills.
Or maybe it was his relatively short life span. After all, thirty years is hardly enough to make much of an impact. Yet other composers like Mozart and Schubert had similar life spans, but they were well established enough before they were thirty.
Whichever the reason, it does, on the surface of things, seem strange that a composer that had such an influence as he did on Classical music remains much of a virtual unknown.
Ever heard of Domenico Alberti? Who?
Around nine out of ten people haven't, and if you have, then you must have a fairly in depth knowledge of music. But it is fair to say most people have played something by him.
Born in 1710, Alberti stood at a crossroads between the Baroque (1600 - 1750) and Classical eras (1750 - 1827). He was perhaps overshadowed by established Baroque composers such as Bach, Vivaldi and Handel, or upstaged by other emerging composers. Yet his influence of music cannot, cannot, be denied.
Previous Baroque composers had relied on imitation and polyphony as a developmental process in music. They created interest by varying repeated melodic ideas or motifs in different keys, and this process, which began in the previous Renaissance era, appeared to have run its course and was gradually being replaced in favour of a more homophonic sound - a single melody line supported by chords. In short, the polyphony and imitative styles of the Renaissance and Baroque were declining in influence.
But a single line of music, supported just by block chords, would make for uninteresting listening, particularly on the harpsichord (the piano was only in its infancy), where the sound produced by the instrument faded away from the moment the keys were depressed.
Alberti realised two things: when it came to keyboard music, the polyphonic, imitative style of the Baroque kept interest going in the music, because there was always something going on in the background instead of silence. But Alberti also realised that using fragments of the original melody in the background, alongside the original melody itself, made it complex and difficult for the listener to grasp, especially after prolonged periods.
Alberti theorised that a simpler form of background accompaniment, one that did not derive from the original melody, would continue the function of filling in the background, but without making demands on the listener or muddling the music with fragments of the original melody flying all over the place. The Alberti bass was born. It is essentially a broken chord accompaniment, with the notes of the three-note chord repeated in the order of bottom, top, middle, top, to form a continuous pattern in the background; one that is noticeable, but does not distract from the main melody.
Alberti never wrote any major works but his idea of broken chords was taken up by later Classical composers such as Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven and used extensively until it became synonymous with the Classical sound - definitive of music written between 1750 - 1827, as well as Classical music in general. The next time you encounter a piece of music and encounter a broken chord pattern, spare a thought for Alberti, the forgotten pioneer of piano music accompaniment.