Piano Lessons

Sunshine Coast Piano Lessons

Students taking piano lessons either have a traditional acoustic piano at home or a digital piano with weighted keys and a note range of 76 or 88 notes. Beginners may start with a more basic keyboard, but it should have at least 61 notes and be sensitive to touch (can play loud or soft by the player’s touch).

Piano lessons are available at three locations:

• My home studio at Rosemount on the Sunshine Coast

• Suncoast Christian College, Woombye (for students enrolled at Suncoast)

• Victory College, Gympie (for students enrolled at Victory)

Individual or Shared Lessons

Most students are enrolled for individual lessons each week, but there is an option for a shared lesson at Suncoast and Victory. Shared lessons are for two students of similar age and level of experience.

Duration of lessons is usually 30 minutes each week, but for advanced students, 45-minute and 60-minute lessons are recommended.

The teaching style is driven by the student’s personal goals but can broadly fit into the following categories:

Learning for Exams & Eisteddfods as short term goals

A structured lesson with specific goals for technical requirements, pieces, aural, sight reading and theory skills. Graded exams are an effective way for students to achieve specific levels of skill within a given timeframe. The technical work to support the playing is a variety of scales, arpeggios and other exercises. This approach will ensure the highest level of skill and will also take the most time to achieve those high skills levels.

Learning solely for enjoyment

This learning style is similar to the first teaching style, but the pressure of exams or performance is removed. Choice of repertoire is more flexible as the pieces don’t have to comply with an exam syllabus, but some technical work is still necessary to establish effective fingering habits and good technical control.

Learning piano chord style

This style is popular with teens whose musical interests are strongly in pop and rock music. Students who would like to play in church and youth bands that use a lot of Hillsong and Bethel music often prefer this style of learning also. Playing in a style where the piano or keyboard is a rhythmic chordal style requires a different approach, as the focus is strongly aural where students are relying on their ear and prior knowledge of a song as it is already recorded on YouTube or Spotify. A solid knowledge of keys and chords is developed through this learning style.

Learning Music Theory

Foundational knowledge of the theory of music is embedded in all lessons so that the student has knowledge of musical notation, signs, terms, keys and chords to support independent learning and playing of the piano. Specific theory lessons are given when students work in the higher grades and theory prerequisites are required for exam purposes. In piano chord style, the lessons are structured to practically apply the knowledge of different keys and associated chords through a progressive approach.

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