What makes your piano lessons different from other local options around here?

There are three core things that make our approach to piano lessons different: process, performance, and measurement.

1. A Better Learning Process

Beginning students at Music Pillars are with us for 60 minutes, rather than the traditional 30-minute private lesson.

For the first eight years we taught music here, we used the traditional 30-minute, one-on-one lesson format. Over time, however, we became convinced that 30 minutes simply wasn't enough to give children the complete musical education we wanted them to receive.

Our 60-minute format gives students the best of both worlds. Approximately 30 minutes includes group activities such as music games, theory, songwriting, rhythm, and playing music with other students. The other 30 minutes focuses on the student's individualized instruction and progress.

This allows us to teach much more than simply how to play the next song in a book. Our goal is to develop well-rounded musicians.

2. Frequent, Real-World Performance

Our students perform a minimum of four times each year, with performances typically in October, December, March, and May. This frequent performance comes from our “Friday Fest” Performance cadence that we have had for individual students.

And these aren't performances where a student prepares one song, plays for two minutes, and is finished. At each event, students generally perform at least three songs and sometimes as many as six.

Some of those are group performances, while typically two or three are solo performances.

We believe performing is an important part of learning music. Students need repeated, real-life experience preparing music, getting on stage, playing in front of other people, and becoming increasingly comfortable and confident doing it.

3. Objective Measurement of Progress

We don't want parents to simply have to take our word for it that their child is progressing.

One way we provide objective measurement is through our robust Royal Conservatory of Music program. The Royal Conservatory provides internationally recognized standards that allow students to demonstrate that they are developing genuine musical knowledge and skills.

We also use software to track and measure student progress. Many of the fundamentals of music don't need to be subjective. Students can see their results, our teachers can see their results, and parents can see their results.

When we say that a student has mastered a particular musical skill or learned a piece of music, we want to have objective evidence that they really have.

Ultimately, those three ideas—process, performance, and measurement—are at the heart of what makes the Music Pillars approach to piano education different.