Welcome to my Teaching Studio!

Here are some short video tips on how I create music! From blues and boogie, to pop piano and improvisation, these videos are designed to inspire and inform. There are more videos to come so check back soon! Enjoy!

For private lessons and coaching, assistance in recording and/or producing your next CD, or help in taking your music to the next level, contact me.

CANON IN D TUTORIAL

Here’s an instructional video on how to approach improvising on Canon in D. This song is so well loved all over the world and for many reasons; one is that it’s a beautiful melody. And because it’s relatively simple, it’s easy to play. But you can really embellish the melody and style on this piece and give it different treatments. Here, I’ve focused on different Right Hand patterns, different Left Hand patterns, and showing the student how to ‘open up your hands’ to voice a chord differently and create more ‘color’ in your sound. Good luck with this! Stay tuned for more videos on Canon in D soon.

Here’s my most popular video on youtube: Canon in D. I start the piece simply, sparsely creating space and allowing room to grow as the piece unfolds. At 1:45 I take a departure and start adding a different bass line to give the piece more of a groove. Then at 2:41 I go into more of a rock piano groove. And at 3:23, I use a pedal point on a ‘D’ bass note. In other words, I’m playing the different chords over the same ‘D’ bass to give it suspension, tension and excitement. At 3:36, I break into a series of arpeggios that give the piece more release and motion. At 3:50 the music starts to come down and relax. And at 4:18 the theme is restated. This sets up the close and the whole piece comes down to the simple, sparse feel similar to the opening lines. It’s like a plane landing back on the runway! Home again!

More individual instructional videos on these various sections just described will be coming soon! Stay tuned!