I am an experienced piano teacher of over 20 years and advanced musician that has been fortunate to being trained by a teacher in the line of Franz Lizst, one of the greatest pianists of all time and Leschetizky, one of the greatest teacher’s of all time. I also have a B.S. Degree in Education and Business from Brigham Young University.

I’m super excited to share my passion of the piano with you! I remember when I was about 6 years old, I would beg my mom to take piano lessons.

After years of waiting, the day finally arrived when I was able to attend my first piano lesson! I was fortunate, as my piano teacher lived around the corner from me. I was now almost 13 years old (an older beginner)!

I remember that my lesson was 30 minutes long and I was surprised at how fast the lessons went when my teacher started wrapping things up 25 minutes into the lesson.

That’s one thing I felt a little disappointed about is how short most of my piano lessons were.

Early in my piano teaching career, after teaching out of several traditional piano methods, I was somewhat puzzled and confused–not very many students were learning to read music and count correctly. They could play songs but as soon as you took their hands out of a certain position they became lost!

I was actually shocked when I first realized this! It really made me feel like a failure as a teacher.

I realized that these traditional method books were causing the problem as they were training the brain to rely on finger numbers and hand positions, instead of reading the notes off the staff!!

So I began searching for a new way to teach lessons.

It took me years before I found something that really worked. I was looking into teaching group lessons and couldn’t find anything that I thought was worthwhile in music stores for group teaching. I went online and did some research and found the Mayron Cole Piano Method.

Mayron Cole, created this method for her piano students who were struggling with the same problems many of my students were having. She ended up making it a group and private lesson method as she noticed her students worked better and enjoyed lessons more while in a group.

When I looked through the curriculum, I thought this is amazing! Everything just made so much sense as the method trains the eye to read the notes first–not memorize finger numbers and hand positions!!!  I was not only excited to start teaching this curriculum to groups but also and especially to my deprived private students!

I remember the first lessons I taught the students, the students caught on so easily. It was the easiest way to teach lessons that I had ever taught. The students were happy and so was I. 

Gone were the issues I had before of students just reading finger numbers and not really focusing on reading off the music staff. I’ve noticed that the students who come to me from other teachers who were taught from a different method generally struggle with note reading and counting skills. 

Even though I had taught piano lessons for around 15 years I took the opportunity to go back and upgrade my skills these past 8 years.  I have had the opportunity to study under what I consider to be a master instructor teacher.

This his been life changing and given me the opportunity to learn new material that I never had the technical skills to play before!

This teacher’s name is Barbara Steiner and I am truly grateful to her for all she has taught me. She has been trained in the line of Franz Liszt one of the greatest pianists ever to live and Leschetizsky, a master teacher who actually produced more accomplished pianists than Liszt. Anyways both of these pianists and teachers had similar technique and training styles where they could produce the most beautiful effortless clear sound. I call it the Leschetizsky and Lizst effect.

The first day I attended lessons I thought I was going to really show my new teacher how great of  a pianist I was because I was a super good sight reader and also a teacher.

After playing a little for her she said something to the affect that I played or sounded ugly.  Ouch!– this was such a shock to me. I had been told nothing but the opposite before. I was like what??

I have to say this was a little bit of a struggle in the beginning to hear such a critique and to try and change my technique and listening skills.  There were quite a few times when I just wanted to walk out of lessons because I thought–“this is so picky”!!

However I could hear the difference in an amateur sound and a professional sound and I knew I that I had to keep going. Barbara could play so many amazing pieces with such power and beauty and I wanted to be able to do the same–so I stuck with it!!

I have to say I’m so glad I did. I can now play songs that I did not have the technical strengths to play in the past.  It has opened up a whole new world of possibilites in my playing and teaching abilities that I want to share with you so you can not only learn to play the piano but sound amazing too.

I am thankful for the opportunity to take have taken lessons as it has enriched my life in so many ways. I have been able to serve my church, community, and family by teaching lessons, playing for weddings, funerals, church services, community choir concerts, etc. The piano has given me the opportunity to serve in a way that I truly enjoy but the best part is just sitting down and playing music that I love.

I love being able to sit down and sight read beginning and intermediate pieces.   I love the challenge of trying to perfect the technique of an advanced piece.  I love just sitting down and singing with some simple chords as an accompaniment.

Take the time to learn to play the piano properly and this skill will bless you the rest of your life! Don’t go for the fast gimmicks that will only allow you to reach a certain level.  I hope you will join me in this online lesson new community and I will teach you how to read notes, count rhythms, execute the right technique so you can develop and produce a beautiful tone while playing the piano. That way you will never hear those words I heard from my piano mentor in my first advanced lesson “you play ugly”- ha ha.

Click Here to see a performance of me playing a short clip of Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu–a life long dream!