What is Whole Music Lessons' Integral Keyboard Teaching?

• It includes a creativity-based, comprehensive set of skills.
• It synergistically combines successful practice techniques used by jazz/pop keyboardists with current, proven approaches to music reading and traditional piano repertoire.
• It emphasizes structural understanding.
• The student finds his or her own musical voice.
• It uses music from various traditions, both written and oral.

Here at Whole Music Lessons, you learn how to blend the best of

current and proven piano pedagogy approaches to music reading, with the most successful learning techniques used by jazz and popular keyboardists. I emphasize structural understanding, and make use of music from various traditions from around the globe.

• Exactly what are partial music lessons versus whole music lessons?
• As a teacher or student, how do they make a real difference to you?

For instance, should students have to choose between having a teacher for learning music such as that by Mozart and Debussy, and/or having a different teacher for chords and jazz/pop arranging? I believe that students shouldn't need to have two separate keyboard teachers, and a great deal of my colleagues agree. During my conference sessions, many have expressed interest and enthusiasm for teaching their students this more complete set of musicianship skills.

• What is a complete, well-rounded set of skills?

For pianists, this includes not only a solid foundation in music reading, but also plenty of structural knowledge, so we can learn music from the inside out. Familiarity with chords, chord voicings, reading from a lead sheet, arranging and improvising are all so much more than simply fluff or "fun stuff." They are essential skills for all musicians, even those who'd simply like to interpret the classics. Many pianists look at just notes and fingerings. But when we know how music is constructed, and become accustomed to always understanding what pieces are made of, everything else becomes easier, including sight reading and memorizing traditional repertoire pieces.

For these reasons, many piano teachers have expressed interest in teaching skills associated with pop and jazz, so that they complement and enhance what their students are learning with the classics. I started this site, to explain my methodology more fully, to begin to release my materials, and to give readers the opportunity to use them, make comments, and share what works for their students. As I upload materials, please tell me what's especially helpful in your own learning, what you do and don't like, what's truly useful for your students, and what you'd still like to know.

- Susan Capestro