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!
One of the things we possibly admire about pianists is the ability to improvise at the piano. The improvisation seems very effortless, and the creation of lyrical musical tunes from thin air leaves us in deep appreciation. A phrase that is often bandied around is the natural talent of the pianist, as if he or she were born with an innate skill. But improvisation is really a skill that is honed from periods of listening, theoretical understanding and practice.
What sort of things can you do to develop your improvisational skills? One is to build up your knowledge of chords and inversions. A chord is technically two or more notes played simultaneously, although frequently we encounter three. There are twelve main major and minor chords, from C upwards, although a good place to start is just with the ones with all notes on white keys - C major, D minor, E minor, F major, G major and A minor. Familiarise yourself with the notes that make up these chords.
The notes that make up these chords can be rearranged in different orders. The basic arrangement of the C major chord, CEG, is called the triad, but these notes can be reordered and played differently, GCE or EGC. The latter two are called inversions.
Learn and practice the inversions of the chords in both hands. And then apply different accompanying patterns to them. And once you have managed these, link a few of them (maybe around eight, with repeated chords or inversions) to create a chord progression.
Improvisation is a productive skill; productive skills spring forth from receptive skills. If you want someone to produce art work, give them exposure to artistic things. Put a child in an environment where a different language is spoken and soon they will speak some of the language too. So listen to lots of music to get an idea of how it is constructed, and pretty soon you will start creating your own compositions; and the chordal exercises you have done will give you the theoretical base to make meaningful music.