Is Playground Sessions for me?

[Jake69]

Hi everyone!

Peter from Sweden here. I'm presently looking for a suitable internet teacher and I'm curious about Playground Sessions, but don't know if it's what I need. My piano background is so long gone that I consider myself a complete rookie. But now very much focused on fullfilling the dream of learning to play. I'm not so interested in learning a "number of songs" though, but rather to learn "the language of music". And being able to express that through my piano, if you see what I mean. Let me give an example. Just as I could learn to recite a number of Chinese poems by heart, without having the faintest clue of what they mean or how they are composed, I could also learn to play a number of songs without any understanding of how they are musically built. This is NOT what I'm looking for.

What I AM looking for is a piano teacher that can help me build my musical development and understanding from the bottom and up. Musical theory, mastering the key board - i.e. not only WHAT to play, but also HOW to play it -, understanding tonal and melodical principles as well as chord structures, how chords relate to each other and to the melody, how to improvise, how to play by ear and how to transcribe, sight reading. Etc, etc.

BTW - I'm not primarily into classic music. My heart beats for Blues & Jazz!

Please excuse this lengthy message, but can someone tell me if Playground Sessions is for me?

And - I'm presently all set up with a good digital 88 keys piano with all connections you can think of (I believe...).

All the best / Peter

[Ballahooligan]

Hi Peter - hope you're well.

I'm prettry new to this as well but I didn't go for this course for the song library, I went for the fact that there is proper instruction on theory and reading notation. Ultimately I want to be reading my own sheet music eventually and I think this will do the job as long as I'm willing to put the work in.

I'm only a couple of weeks in but so far it has been excellent. Both myself and my wife have been really surprised by the speed in which it has got us reading off both the treble and bass staffs and we're both about to start putting that together on both hands. Liek you, I'm really more into the soul, jazz and blues stuff but there's some good stuff in there. I'm already fiddling around with So What (Miles Davis) which is a creacking bass line.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Seumas.

[Jake69]

Hi Seumas.

And thank's a lot for your swift - and positive - answer. Sure helps and worth a lot to me!

Stay well and keep on rockin'!!!

[FlatPanda]

Hi there (and hopefully welcome )

I must say: PGS is for you. Not necessarily the song store, but the bootcamps and courses. I'm 5 months in, and I already saved a lot of money by getting a lifetime subscription instead of going to a real-life teacher.

The bootcamps start at the very beginning, and build up from there. The courses are then for a bit more theory (scales, chords, famous melodies; but we also have now Hanon-exercises for building up muscle strength).

Of course, after a while, you'll hit the limits of the software and teaching. As far as I am aware, the following topics are a bit lacking:

• pedalling (some instructions in the "Advanced bootcamp", maybe some courses, which I did not unlock yet; but in the PGS sheet music, you won't see pedal signs for example)

• dynamics (the software can't handle it, and thus it's omitted from the scores)

• repetitions (but that's easy to learn on your own)

• other articulations (e.g., staccato), ornaments (e.g., turns) -- but if you get to this nuance, these you can learn on your own, or got to YouTube, Wikipedia, or numerous music theory sites (or even get one or two lessons with a flesh-and-bone teacher)

Just my 2¢.

Cheers

[Jake69]

Thank's FlatPanda.

Appreciate your advice. I'm presently comparing PGS and Pianoforall which are on my shortlist.

I used to play some guitar earlier and then had enrolled in the Justin Guitar school. Which I must say is a superbly composed online guitar school. It covers both music theory and practical guitar playing. All styles are covered (more or less) and the lessons are very pedagogically structured in logical blocks building on each other, level by level. It's mainly video lessons with Justin Sandercoe giving very clear and thorough instructions what and HOW to play each step on the way. But there's also written books on theory and lots of sheet music to download. You really couldn't get closer to having a personal teacher, and the member forum was very active and helpful if and when you got stuck.

So - basicly I'm looking for a piano equivalent of that. (I actually asked Justin if he knew of some good piano school of this model, but he said he was looking for one himself and asked me to tell him if I found one... )