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!
We often speak of people learning an instrument by ear. Just what exactly does playing by ear entail? Simply put, it is the reproduction of a piece of music that has been heard, without the sheet music notation or without seeing anyone else play it. In other words, it is playing a song using memory, and partly through improvisation to fill in the missing gaps.
How can we learn to play by ear? As with other musical skills, it is something that can be developed. One of the ways to improve your ability is to hum familiar tunes and see if you can tell if these notes are higher or lower. Gradually keep practising at it, and further refine your ability to identify the gaps between notes. For example, the second note in a tune may be higher than the first, but by how much? Knowing the distance between the gaps of notes will help you to work out tunes once you know what the first couple of notes are.
Familiarise yourself with the sound of chords and accompanying patterns. Start by listening to music and trying to work out if the chords are major or minor. Also acquaint yourself with the sounds of common broken chord patterns, such as Alberti bass, arpeggiac, and open chords. A lot of the left hand parts in piano music are based on chords, and if you know what they sound like, or can identify the pattern that is played, you have less things to mentally retain.
For example, instead of you having to remember this string of notes:
CGEG CGEG FCAC FCAC GDBD GDBD AECE AECE
You merely remember:
Alberti bass, C major, F major, G major, A minor
Rather than retaining 32 notes, you are only retaining five pieces of information.
If you cannot identify the exact pattern that is being played in a song, you can use another pattern based on the chords.
How do you put all these in practice? Start by working out the notes of a melody first. Then try to establish the key and the chords you are likely to encounter by varying the notes in the tune to get different combinations.
When you are trying to figure out which chord to use, a good starting point is to use chords (in the left hand) that include notes that appear in the melody (right hand).
The skill and speed at which you can play a song by ear largely depends on your practised ability to translate what you hear into notes and patterns you have played. Being able to work out the melody of a song is a good start. Being able to work out chords and accompaniments is also a good stage to be at too. Learning to play by ear involves many attempts at aurally working out a song, where each iteration brings it closer to the original. And it involves a lot of developed practice. The pianists that can successively recreate a song at the first or second attempt are able to do so, only because they have done years of practice at listening to music, practised working out chords and patterns, and practised integrating the two skills.
It all comes down to practice. And the more you work at it, the more effortless it becomes, and the more talented you'll appear to be.