Patrick - Piano tutor - New York
1st lesson free
Patrick - Piano tutor - New York

Patrick's profile and contact details have been verified by our team

Patrick

  • Rate R904
  • Response 1h
Patrick - Piano tutor - New York

R904/h

1st lesson free

Contact

1st lesson free

1st lesson free

  • Piano
  • Musical keyboard
  • Synthesizer

Piano lessons that teach the keyboard as hand shapes and landmarks, not note by note

  • Piano
  • Musical keyboard
  • Synthesizer

Lesson location

About Patrick

At the piano I tend to watch your eyes as much as your hands. When a student hesitates, it's usually because they're searching for the next note instead of seeing the next shape. So I'll often ask you to look ahead before you play, tell me where your hand goes next, and then let you play it. That small pause to look ahead becomes a habit that makes reading and memorizing much less stressful.

If something isn't making sense, I come at it from a different direction. I might draw the hand position as a small diagram, have you play a passage with your eyes closed to feel the distances, or play the melody alone so you can hear what the inner notes are supporting. With younger students, landmarks become things like "the castle note" or "the stair-step part". With adults, I often explain the harmony underneath, because knowing why a chord is there makes it easier to find.

My lessons are calm and organized without feeling formal. We usually start with what you've been practicing, quickly find the bar that's causing trouble, and spend real time there instead of playing the piece top to bottom again and again. I'll tell you when something is ready to move on and when it isn't, and I'll explain why in specific terms.

I like teaching the full range: children finding middle C for the first time, teenagers preparing exam or recital pieces, adults who took lessons as kids and want to return, and experienced players trying to make a performance more secure. My job is the same in every case. I help you see the keyboard clearly, understand the music you're playing, and practice in a way that keeps working after the lesson ends.

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About the lesson

  • All levels
  • English

Languages in which the lesson is available :

English

Reading piano music one note at a time is like reading a sentence letter by letter. It works, but it's slow and tiring, and the music never quite flows. In my lessons you'll learn to see where your hand lands as a shape. Before playing a passage, we often press each hand position down together as a chord, a quick "snapshot" of where the fingers belong, and then move from one snapshot to the next. For a beginner learning a first piece, this turns a page of dots into three or four places the hand needs to go. For an advanced pianist working on a difficult étude or a Chopin nocturne, it makes leaps, fingering and position changes clear before the notes even have rhythm.

Many students know the frustration of a piece that sounds fine at home and then falls apart the moment someone listens, always in the same few bars. Usually that's because the hands are moving on memory alone, with no clear picture of where they're going. So we build landmarks. You'll learn to recognise the bass notes that anchor each phrase, the place where the melody repeats, and the chord the piece keeps coming back to. If your memory slips, you'll have a nearby place to jump back in instead of starting over from the beginning. We often strip a piece down to just the melody and bass line, play that until the shape of the music is clear, and then add the inner notes back.

Fingering is another place where I work from the hard spot outward. We find the trickiest moment in a passage first, decide the best fingers for it, and then work backward to choose fingerings that get you there comfortably. Many problems that seem like "weak fingers" are really fingers arriving in the wrong order. We also pay attention to how you use your arm. You'll compare pressing keys with finger force alone against letting the weight of your arm drop into the key, and hear the difference in tone. That one comparison often solves both tired hands and a harsh sound.

Lessons cover whatever music you care about, from classical repertoire to pop songs, accompaniment, lead sheets and chord playing. If you want to accompany singers or play by ear, the same thinking in shapes helps you learn chord inversions that sit close together. Each lesson ends with a clear plan: what to practise, in what order, and how to know when it's ready, so you leave with a method and not only homework.

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Rates

Rate

  • R904

Package rates

  • 5h: R4520
  • 10h: R9040

free lesson

The free first lesson with Patrick allows you to get to know the tutor and discuss your needs and expectations.

  • 1h

online

  • R904/h

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Languages in which the lesson is available

English

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