A New Year's Resolution Worth Making

This is the time of year that I like to talk to my students about their goals for the upcoming year.  It’s fun to talk out loud about what we want to accomplish.  It reminds of why we are putting all this work into something.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the day to day things of life, and piano is no different.  We (hopefully) have a practice routine that we stick to.  We sit down a couple times a week, play some scales and arpeggios, work on playing chords and then play through some songs.  It’s easy to forget why we are doing it?

So every once in a while it’s important to stop and think about what we are trying to accomplish.  And the beginning of a new year is a great time to do that!

Many of the people I talk to like to say they don’t make new year’s resolutions because it is a waste of time.  And although I understand the sentiment, I couldn’t disagree more.  I think the word “resolution” has been so overused that it is meaningless to us now.  So many of us have promised to make big changes in January and then by February have given up.  If you do this enough years in a row, you get bitter and you stop believing in “resolutions.”

But “resolution” is just a word.  What if we changed it to “goals?”  Would you be willing to make some New Year’s goals?  I think everyone would agree that in order to be successful, we need to set goals.  It just so happens that the beginning of a new year is a good time to do it, since it gives us the feeling of a fresh start.

Don’t be afraid to make some big goals this year.  This is the time to get healthy, to make more money, spend more time with family, or take piano lessons.  These are resolutions worth making, and we should never be afraid to set new goals.  No matter how many times we have failed in the past, this is a new year.  A new chance.  It’s okay if we didn’t follow through in the past.  It’s only because we are human beings with busy lives.  We need to let that guilt go and start again.  And a new year is the perfect time to start again!

So what are your New Year’s goals going to be?

Best Piano Teachers In St. Louis

St. Louis is an amazing city for music. Whether you want to hear jazz, blues, rock, country, or rap, St. Louis has it all. No wonder the city has so many amazing music teachers. If you want to learn to play an instrument in St. Louis, you have your pick of the finest instructors in the country!

Today, I want to talk about some of the best piano teachers in St. Louis. There are many music schools to choose from. My personal favorite is Shock City School Of Music. Yes, it’s true I have friends who work there. But more than that, it offers a really cool atmosphere to learn your instrument in. You can take your lesson right down the hall from a top quality studio. Who knows who might be recording there on the day of your lesson?

I think when I was a kid I would have loved to take lessons in a recording studio. How exciting and motivating for kids to see where they could be headed if they stick to their instrument.

St. Louis is also home to a large number of private instructors. There are too many to list here, but TakeLessons.com or Lessons.com are both great resources to explore all the wonderful teachers in St. Louis.

STL Piano Lessons is my piano instruction company. I have been teaching piano since 2009 and have had the opportunity to work with so many great students. I teach students of all ages and all skill levels and I specialize in teaching how to play by ear. It’s something that not too many teachers offer to teach and it’s a lot of fun to learn!

“I love the big ah-ha moments my students have when something clicks for the first time. Seeing them start to understand a big concept is truly exciting and is why I do what I do!” — Chris Swan, Founder of STL Piano Lessons

You are not as far away from playing your favorite song as you might think. I can teach you the system that all professional musicians use to learn songs. After a while, you can be the person at the party who hears a song on the radio for the first time and then sits down and plays it! How cool would that be?

If you are looking to take piano lessons in St. Louis, I would love to chat with you, learn what your musical goals are and see if we can’t just get you playing your favorite tune quicker than you might think!

If you are interested in piano lessons, just hit the button below for more info!

Piano Lessons In St. Louis MO

Are you looking for piano lessons in St. Louis, MO? I am a piano player, singer and band leader as well as piano instructor and audio production instructor. I specialize in teaching how to play piano by ear! I can teach you the system that all professional musicians use when it comes to learning songs.

You will be able to hear a song off the radio and sit down and play it. It’s a lot of fun! I also make sure I customize each lesson to what the student wants to learn. If you want to focus on the classical repertoire, then we will do that. If you want to learn to play songs off the radio, we will do that. For students of all ages, you will learn the fundamentals while also learning the things you love to play!

I have been in the music business my whole life! I played my first gig when I was 12 and haven’t slowed down since. I am a full-time musician playing bars, restaurants and private parties in St. Louis. I play with a number of jazz musicians around town, I have my own band (Sky West Trio), and I also play in a few piano bars.

I took piano lessons for about 15 years (from ages 5–20) growing up and continue to study and improve my playing to this day. I also studied piano performance at Greenville University. I have been teaching piano since 2009 out of my home studio as well as teaching at Midwest Music Conservatory from 2011–2014. Music is my passion and my career and I love passing on what I have learned to new students!

Here are some Frequently Asked Questions that I get a lot. Hopefully these will answer a few questions you may have.

1. How much are lessons? My lessons are $30/30mins, $40/45mins, and $50/60mins. Discounts are available if you pay for 4 lessons at a time or more!

2. Do you travel to student locations or does student need to come to you? At this time, I am unable to travel to student locations, so students need to come to me. I teach out of my studio in my home in Dogtown (near Maplewood/Richmond Heights).

3. What do I need to bring to my first lesson? All you need to bring to your first lesson is a notebook.

4. How often should I do lessons? Ideally, a 30-minute lesson once a week is perfect for most students. If you have a lot of time to practice and want to really go for it, we can do 45 minutes or an hour once a week.

5. What happens if I can’t make a scheduled lesson? We all get sick or have things come up so don’t worry. If you can’t make a lesson, we just need to schedule a makeup lesson for another day that same week. If we can’t find a time that works, then you will be charged for that lesson. This just helps keep your weekly lesson time reserved for you. If you know at the beginning of the month, however, that you will be gone on a certain day, just let me know and you won’t be charged for that day.

I love helping students reach their playing and performance goals! Whether they want to play Mozart or they want to figure out a song from a movie, it’s a blast to help students discover how to play a tune they know and love. It is also so much fun to experience the moment certain things “click” and my students start to understand a new concept. I hope to maybe experience those same moments with you!

If you’d like more information on piano lessons in St. Louis, just hit the button below:

How To Play Piano By Ear

I love the piano. I’ve been playing since I was a little kid. And yes, it’s true, my parents had to make me take lessons for a few years, but once I was around 10 or 11 I started to really love it. And what made me love it was figuring out how to play songs on the radio by ear!

I think the first one I learned was Jump by Van Halen. You were really cool if you could play that back in the 1980’s. And I wanted to be cool. My friend Jeff showed me how to do it. Once I got it, I played it over and over and over again, surely driving my parents crazy. But I was so excited that I could play something on the piano and have it sound exactly like what I heard on the radio. I knew right then I wanted more of that.

So I learned Axel F from Beverly Hills Cop. Then it was the theme to Rocky and the theme to Chariots Of Fire. Now that I think about it, a lot of those songs were from movies and TV shows I loved. It was so fun to be able to watch my favorite show and then go over to the piano and play the theme song!

Now as a piano teacher in St. Louis, MO, I get to help my students accomplish that very same feat every day! And it is so fun to watch them start to understand how to learn these songs by ear.

See, there is an actual system that all professional musicians use to learn songs. Once you understand your basic major scales, you can start to learn how to build chords from those scales. And then you put those chords into chord progressions which make up all the songs we know. This is by far my favorite thing to teach. A student can go from no knowledge of music at all to playing one of their favorite songs in a matter of weeks. How fun is that!?

If you’d like to experience these magical moments for yourself, I would love to chat about piano lessons for your kids or for you! It’s never too late to start learning this stuff. And the joy my students get from being able to sit down and play music for the people they love, is really what it’s all about.

Playing the piano by ear is a learnable skill that just about anyone can do. You don’t have to be blessed with amazing musical talent. You just have to love music and be willing to sit down and practice a few times a week. Believe me, the pay off is worth it!

If you’d like more information on piano lessons, just hit the button below!