Interested in knowing about the lessons Victor teaches? This is the place to go! Below is an outline of the teaching philosophy Victor believes in, the styles he teaches, and the methods he uses to create a piano player from anyone who possesses the passion, desire, commitment, and discipline to succeed!

Philosophy

Most conventional instruction involves practice of a particular piece, repetition until the piece is perfect, and then moving on to the next piece. Victor finds no fault in this method as long as the student only wants to play other people's music in a set style. However, Victor believes that, in order to be a musician, a person needs to have an understanding of the basic building blocks of music, something that is generally lacking in traditional styles of piano instruction. Using this method, he feels that anyone - regardless of musical background, age, level of education, economic status, social class, race, sex - can be a good pianist with his method.

The method employed by Victor, the Piano Skills Method (PSM), teaches individual skills that can be applied to any song, any key, and any style of music. He focuses less on repetition and memorization and more on the elements of music, including chords, progressions, harmonies, rhythyms, walking bass lines, and improvization. He wants his students to veer away from familiar, comfortable music and instead taking chances, trying new things. Instead of being incorrect, he views a mistake as an opportunity to branch out and explore new ideas. After all, Jazz, Blues, Rock, and many other styles of music were considered incorrect and wrong when they first made their first appearances.

Piano Skills Method

While there are many different styles to play in and millions of songs to apply these styles to, the piano is a universal instrument that is physically played essentially the same by everyone. There are also many tips, tricks, and techniques that can be applied to any style of music. The Piano Skills Method focuses on these techniques in order to supply you with the skills you need to be able to play as wide a range of music as possible, from jazz, blues, R&B, gospel, rock all the way to country, latin, classical, big band, etc. It is still a structured method that requires passion, desire, commitment, and discipline, but it is not the rigorously formal method that is employed by many traditional instructors. Victor uses this method because it has proven to achieve results, when followed. He believes that learning to play the piano should be challenging, rewarding, and fun!

Basic Method Overview

While Victor teaches in a very flexible style with much room for deviance, his approach to learning does have structure and requires discipline to be successful. If you are interested in taking lessons, the following is a broad itinerary of what you will learn. Under Victor's instruction, you will:

• start by learning some basic music reading fundamentals
• understand and play different types of rhythms, such as walking bass lines
• practice some simple classical techniques that are needed to play fluidly and improvise
• study lots and lots of advanced theory, the backbone of all contemporary piano playing
• learn to play by ear and to transcribe what you hear
• analyze various artists' styles to see how they play and develop a style of your own
• work closely with chord charts
• memorize and use advanced chords, fingerings, and voicings
• focus on jazz voicings and modes to add a unique sound to any music

Interview

Because of the number of long-term students that Victor instructs and other commitments he already has, he is only accepting a few more students. After the inital contact via email or phone (click here to be taken to the contact page), Victor would like to meet with you for about 30-45 minutes. This first meeting serves as an interview process for you as well as for Victor. In this meeting, you can both find out more about each other to see if he's the teacher you want and to give him an idea of where you want to go with your music, where you're coming from, and what (if any) skills you already have.