I specialize in online lessons for adults who are just beginning all the way up to the late intermediate/early advanced level.

I focus on learning the piano with primarily classical repertoire. If you fall into this category, you would very likely enjoy working with me and would do well in your study.

I do not have much experience with improvised music, jazz, or chording. I enjoy popular music, and am willing to work with you on this.  If you would like to play more popular music, please book a free consultation with me so that I can better assess your needs. I do not have pre recorded lessons for popular music, but would be happy to work with you in live lessons after a consult.

Please note that I generally will decline to be your instructor if I determine that I am not a good fit for you due to interests, hardware limitations, or other reasons.

Due to the required use of technology, the minimum age at which I recommend starting online lessons is at least 10 years old. Students will need to be able to view their assignments online and operate their own equipment.

Younger students generally require a more hands-on approach in regular weekly lessons. Although these can be done online, the presence of a parent to be involved with and help during lessons is an absolute necessity. I recommend starting with lessons from someone who specialized in working with younger children, and then making the transition to online lessons later. I know a number of qualified teachers, and would be happy to recommend someone for a younger child.

STUDENTS MUST BE AT LEAST 18 TO CONTACT ME DIRECTLY. IF YOU'RE UNDER 18, PLEASE SHOW THIS PAGE TO A PARENT.

Yes!! Besides the obvious benefits of convenience and safety from shared germs, another very important benefit to online lessons is that students are more likely to develop independence much earlier compared to in-person lessons. Students are required to count for themselves, find their own starting positions, set their own metronomes, along with many other things. Even though this can seem inconvenient at first, it is very important that the student can confidently navigate these issues on their own. You will become more proficient sooner by learning to do these thing early on.

Yes. Online lessons are not for everyone. Students using online lessons will need to be very engaged. The student will need to count for themselves, mark their own music, and check online assignments. I consider these issues to ultimately be for the good of the student, but they do make lessons a bit more involved. Independent learners tend to flourish in this type of environment.

Online lessons are best suited for the types of students who would already be seeking the answer to their music questions on the internet or through YouTube. For people who truly desire to learn and enjoy technology, this is a great system. However, some students (especially younger ones) require the face to face engagement found in regular piano lessons to be successful.

I would hope that my students will come away with a love for not only the regular playing of the piano, but of a love for the whole learning process. There is a fair amount of work that goes into learning a piece, but what is learned from that piece can then be translated to other music.

It is impossible to replace the feeling of making music with your own hands. It can become very addicting in a good way. It is something that you will be able to enjoy and share with family and friends for a lifetime.

I require at least 24 hours notice in the event of any rescheduling or cancellation of lessons. If a student cancels or reschedules during this 24-hour window, the lesson will be forfeit.

In the event of unavoidable conflicts or emergency situations, please let me know as soon as possible and I will reschedule the lesson for a future date without penalty.

If for any reason, I am unable to attend a lesson, I will also reschedule your lesson without penalty.

The Studio Membership is a separate entity from my live lesson services. However, they do work very well together.

You do not have to be a member. However, if you choose not to be a member, you will need more regular lessons since you’ll only be getting instruction in a live environment. You should expect to attend lessons weekly as a nonmember.

If you are a member, you can have lessons at any frequency! Some students still choose to meet with me weekly, while others meet with me once a month or so. In this scenario, our lessons would be more similar to piano coaching.

The membership provides you with on-demand access to the same instruction that you would receive if you were studying with me directly. I have taught these pieces many times to many different students. Each time I am discussing the same concepts and skills. By creating a database of these lessons, I have made the process much more efficient. You have the option to fast forward or replay as much as you need.

The membership will save you all kinds of money by replacing multiple live lessons with lessons that have been created and recorded while still providing you with a very realistic experience. The membership is designed to be a self-guided approach to the same piano education that I offer privately, using the mics, cameras, and overall set-up.

Hybrid piano study is a term associated with students who join the piano membership and also attend live lessons. These students are essentially alternating between real time and prerecorded instruction.

In this study model, the student will use the course content as their main path of study, while still attending live lessons via Zoom perhaps once or twice a month. This allows the student to work at his or her own pace while still getting the advantage of live feedback on a regular basis.

Students who use the hybrid model offered by Piano Playing Made Simple will enjoy substantial cost savings and  much greater flexibility for study compared with traditional piano lessons. It should be noted, however, that this will only work for self motivated students who are willing to be thoughtful about their study and save their questions for their lessons.

Students have the freedom to choose when and where they take their lessons. This allows for a great deal more flexibility with scheduling, billing, and even the content covered in a live lesson. Hybrid students have the ability to select from content to choose what is most useful to them at any given time.

There can sometimes be issues with latency and disconnects. I will usually add some time to the lesson or in the event of a major issue, reschedule some extra time at no additional cost so that students always get what they pay for.

In addition to the benefits of not having to spend time/gas money traveling to a teacher, students also benefit from not having to worry about sharing germs should either the instructor or other student be ill. Online students tend to develop a greater degree of independence much sooner. Students are required to count for themselves, find their own starting positions, set their own metronomes, make any necessary notations in their music, along with many other things. Even though this can seem inconvenient at first, it is absolutely essential that students master these things. Studying online will facilitate this process.

Online lessons are simply more efficient. Both student and teacher can begin the lesson with materials out and ready. Students can use time previously spent on travel for warming up or more practicing. There are many benefits from taking piano lessons online.

The reason I teach as much classical repertoire as I do is because the skills that you acquire in working with this type of music will basically ensure that you will be able to pick up almost any other type of repertoire and be successful with it.

Classical music actually includes repertoire from several different historical periods and has quite a large variety of different sounds and styles–not everything sounds like Mozart and Beethoven (although this is some pretty cool music).

I recommend aiming for 20-30 minutes per day when you are in your first few years of study. Once you are more advanced, you will likely want to increase your time up to an hour or so. If you have to choose between long practice sessions and frequent practice sessions, I would advise opting for more frequent sessions. You will make better progress by practicing shorter sessions more frequently than you will with fewer but longer practice sessions.

My job is to coach you on spending your practice time effectively and to help you develop routines that work for you. However, with that said, no practice = no results.

Most piano teachers focus on repertoire — assigning pieces, advancing through levels, and measuring progress by what a student can play. My focus is different.

I look specifically at the underlying skills that make reading music automatic. Rather than simply moving a student to the next piece, I'm asking why certain things feel hard — and building the foundation that makes everything else easier. I call this a diagnostic approach because I'm identifying where a student's reading system has gaps and addressing those gaps directly, the same way a specialist would assess and treat a specific problem rather than offering general advice.

This is what I mean when I describe myself as a sight reading diagnostician. It's not a different way of teaching piano — it's a more specific way of understanding why students struggle, and a more targeted way of fixing it.

Fluent music reading depends on six skills working together automatically:

1. Pitch recognition — identifying notes instantly, without hesitation

2. Hand movement — staying oriented on the keyboard while reading

3. Visual tracking — looking ahead of where you're playing without losing your place

4. Intervallic reading — seeing the distance and direction between notes, not just individual note names

5. Rhythmic stability — maintaining a steady pulse even when the notes get harder

6. Pattern recognition — processing familiar musical shapes as single units rather than decoding note by note

When any one of these isn't yet automatic, your brain has to consciously manage it — which leaves less mental bandwidth for everything else. That's what makes reading feel effortful, fragile, or like it falls apart the moment anything gets more demanding.

The good news is that each of these skills is trainable. You just have to know which one is the weak link. That's exactly what the reading assessment is designed to find out.

The reading assessment is a focused 45-minute session — $37 — where I observe your playing and identify exactly where your reading system has gaps. You'll leave knowing which of the six sight-reading skills are solid, which are still requiring conscious effort, and what that means for how you practice going forward.

If you're an adult learner who has been playing for a while and something still feels off — things are harder than they should be, progress has stalled, or reading seems to break down when the music gets more demanding — the assessment will tell you what's actually happening and why.

The reading assessment is also the required first step before booking the Sight Reading Deep Dive package. Without it, we'd be guessing. With it, we have a clear picture of exactly where to focus.

The Sight Reading Deep Dive is a five-session private Zoom package that follows the reading assessment. Once we know where your gaps are, we spend five 45-minute sessions working directly on them — one layer at a time.

This is not a generic curriculum. Every session is personalized to what your assessment revealed. The goal is to take the skills that are still effortful or inconsistent and make them automatic — so that your reading system holds up when the music gets harder, instead of breaking down.

Sessions are scheduled at your own pace and must be completed within eight weeks of purchase. The package is $255, and the reading assessment ($37) is required beforehand.

Yes — and honestly, this is where my approach tends to be most useful.

Students who have been playing for a long time often have ingrained habits and foundational gaps that were never addressed early on. Things that felt manageable at an easier level start to break down as the music gets more demanding — not because the student isn't working hard enough, but because something underneath was never fully built.

The reading assessment is specifically designed to identify those gaps, regardless of how long you've been playing or how advanced your repertoire is. If you've ever had the feeling that your reading is shakier than it should be at your level, that's worth looking into — and it's very fixable.