How is Play Keyboards For Your Own Enjoyment™ different from traditional keyboard teaching methods?

Traditional keyboard teaching methods are designed to produce a classical or professional pianist, organist, or music teacher. This is a very laborious process and requires years and years of diligent effort before the student achieves a satisfactory level of performance. There is nothing wrong with this methodology if your goal is to perform at such a level but if you just want to quickly learn to make music and enjoy your instrument, you will find the traditional method aggravating and frustrating. You will become a member of that ever expanding group who takes lessons for a few weeks, months, or maybe even a year or so and then gives up.

Here is an example of what I'm talking about right here in Las Vegas from the City-Data Las Vegas Forum:



Even if students hang in there long enough to develop some playing skills the traditional student is taught to play only what is printed by music publishers. This presents its own set of challenges because music publishers want to sell sheet music and song collections. If the publisher produces a keyboard arrangement of a song that is interesting to the ear it will most likely be too complex for most keyboard students to play and it won't sell. If the publisher makes the arrangement too easy, the piece will be so boring that no one would buy it. So, with the knowledge that the top flight keyboard artist will more than likely create their own arrangement, the publisher opts to create mediocre arrangements that will sell but will be less than memorable. This makes the average traditional keyboard student a slave to an uninteresting musical arrangement which will either be above or below their performance capabilities. This is hardly a satisfying reward for years of hard work, struggle, and an investment of $10,000 or more depending on the cost of your instrument. With, Play Keyboards For Your Own Enjoyment™, you will always be able to play simplistically, at the peak of your ability or any where in between without being held back or frustrated by the printed musical arrangement.

The lament of "I wish I'd have stuck with it" is probably the single most heard comment from adults when the subject of keyboards and music surfaces. They wanted to learn to play and then feel like they've failed because they couldn't stick with it. It's not their fault. They had the misfortune to run head first into the system that "everybody" uses but was never designed for their needs or goals. My system, Play Keyboards For Your Own Enjoyment™, is designed for the needs of this adult student.

What about "class lessons"?

The short answer about class lessons is this: Look at the public education system. In a class lesson situation, the teacher's time and attention is divided up among the students so there is very little one-on-one student teacher interaction. The very essence of keyboard music education is the one-on-one relationship between the student and teacher.

Another way of looking at this would be the example of the successful USA Olympic swim team. I'm sure every one of those swimmers started out in a swim class but in order to really excel and rise to their own full potential, they required one-on-one interaction with a swimming coach.

The keyboard class lesson idea started decades ago in Japan. The Yamaha and Suzuki methods looked very interesting as they showed videos of very young students performing quite well. A more in-depth look at what was going on showed that the parents of the students were in fact going to school along with the student and acting as an in-house teacher seven days a week. This kind of system quickly broke down here in the United States as cultural differences and time constraints did not result in the same kind of parental involvement in the keyboard education process. The class lesson concept, however, has always very attractive to music teachers who found they could bill 20 students for the same timeframe that they would normally bill two students. Unfortunately this was economically beneficial for the teacher at the expense of the education of the student since the instructor could not give the vital one-on-one attention required to help the student progress.

I've seen "Teach Yourself To Play" Courses, what about those?

Have you ever tried to set the clock on your VCR, DVD, microwave, etc. with just the help of the owner's manual? Sure you have. We've all had these simple little things where all we had to do was to read a few lines or paragraphs and we would magically know everything we needed to know to complete the task. It never seems to be that simple. Something as complex as learning to play keyboard proficiently is quite beyond the scope of a "Do-It-Yourself" course.

The problem with "Do-It-Yourself" courses is that they work fine until the person reading the course doesn't understand one small concept presented by the author. Since music is an additive process where what you learned yesterday affects your ability to learn and perform today, one small concept that goes misunderstood will topple the whole house of cards, resulting in frustration and abandonment.

Imagine if you will, what would've happened to you in high school or college if the moment you walked in the door you had been handed your textbooks and told, "Here you are. You don't need your teachers. It's all a do-it-yourself education!" Can you imagine what kind of disaster that would've been?

Being a music educator and author, I have often explored the concept of writing my own version of “Teach Yourself” keyboard education. The problem is that if I was to write such a book that anticipated all of the ways musical concepts can be misunderstood, this textbook would be the size of a full set of encyclopedias and no one would read it.

This underscores the value of the music teacher. The teacher is there not just to pour information into the student's head but to get the student back on track when the student runs off the road musically. This is the instructor's greatest value: to make sure the student grasps the concept presented.

There are NO students who cannot learn--only instructors without the tools to help them!

Many times I have had to present a concept to a student four, five, six or more different ways. I can always tell when a student has grasped the concept or when they have failed to grasp it. I love seeing the light bulb go on when they finally do grasp the concept.

Suffice it to say "Teach Yourself" music courses fall pitifully short of what their titles imply. This is not an indictment of the good people who have invested blood, sweat, and tears writing these texts, it is simply a observation of reality from almost four decades of teaching music.

What will I be able to do?

12 to 18 months from the time we begin you will be able to pick up any piano/vocal sheet music and create and play your own arrangement using musical devices (I don't call them tricks as they are legitimate musical concepts that predate Bach) which have been used for centuries by musicians including Mozart and Beethoven as well as modern country, rock 'n roll, jazz, and pop musicians.

You will know how to improvise and to add embellishments which will develop into your own individual musical style.

You will know how to accompany yourself singing, another vocalist, or another instrumentalist.

You will have a working knowledge of music notation theory as well as theories of melody, harmony, rhythm, and chord progressions.

You will learn while using music of YOUR Choice!

Most importantly, you will be able to enjoy the process of making music on your instrument!

How much do keyboards lessons cost?

Music lessons on average cost between $20 and $80 per lesson. While this is usually one of the first questions people ask, it is really one of the least revealing and most likely to cause an incorrect decision about which instructor to use.

The better question should be: What Is the Real Cost? This cost is not necessarily represented by the amount per lesson as was indicated by the person cited in the question at the top of this page. If the cheap lessons will not get you where you want to go and cause you to be frustrated and to quit, then they are extremely expensive regardless of their per lesson cost.

My instruction is neither the cheapest per lesson nor is it the most expensive - it is, however, the BEST value in terms of time and money for adults who wish to play for their own enjoyment.

Here is a graphic comparison of VALUE of Play Keyboards For Your Own Enjoyment™ versus traditional keyboard lessons:



Which instruction method is REALLY the bargin? Lessons that cost $5200.00 (plus extra books), with a system that isn't even designed for what you would really like to accomplish? Lessons that will take four times as long, and have a very high likelyhood of you not even finishing?

Or

The lessons system designed to help you get to where you really want to go in only ONE year, for 1/2 the cost, and with much more enjoyment?

You be the judge. Which makes more sense?

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Looking forward to working with you,
Wayne Judd
Play Keyboards for Your Own Enjoyment™
Las Vegas, NV