Piano Performance

The piano is the instrument this school was founded on, and it remains the discipline the largest number of our students study. It is also the most complete instrument to learn on: melody, bass and harmony all live under two hands, which means a pianist learns to read, hear and think about music in full.

How the lessons work

Lessons are one-to-one and run once a week. Every student follows their own plan. Two students of the same age and the same grade will rarely be working on the same pieces, because they rarely want the same things from the instrument.

What stays constant is the foundation. Technique comes first and is never skipped — it is the reason a player is still comfortable at the instrument twenty years later, and the reason difficult music eventually becomes possible. Around that we build reading, aural work, and the ability to play without the page.

What you will learn

• Staff notation — reading fluently in both clefs, not decoding note by note
• Technique — posture, hand shape, weight, independence, scales and studies
• Sight-reading — the skill that lets you sit down at any piece of music
• Playing by ear — working out what you hear, and harmonising it
• Improvisation — making something of your own from a chord sequence
• Musicianship — phrasing, balance, pedalling, and the decisions that turn correct notes into music

Repertoire

We choose repertoire with the student, not for them. A student working towards a Trinity grade has required pieces to prepare, but there is always room alongside them for the music that made someone want to learn in the first place — film scores, Bollywood, gospel, pop, jazz standards, or whatever is currently stuck in their head.

Examinations

Students who want to work towards a graded examination can prepare for Trinity College London, ABRSM, London College of Music or MTB. Entry is by the teacher's recommendation: we put a student forward when the work is genuinely ready, not when the calendar says so.