Got general music FAQs? Click Here.
What equipment do I need?
- If you're reading this, you already have half of the equipment. All that's left is to get any keyboard or piano. That's it. Many students will also find that it helps to have access to a printer to print out the worksheets, but we'll display those on the screen too. And if you have a way to record video (like a smartphone or iPad or webcam) then you'll be able to submit videos of yourself to get personalized feedback. But again, most students just need internet access and a keyboard. For the list of my equipment, click here
If I decide to do Klopol Academy, can I skip levels?
- I can totally relate. Being stuck on a beginner level would be frustrating for me if I were signing up for a piano program too!
- On the other hand, back when we used to let students self-assess, they so frequently had missed skills they thought weren’t important like fingering or music history or sight reading or a million other things, but they sounded fine to themselves. And when they got to the higher levels where the problems compounded, it was a nightmare for me and understandably disheartening for them to have to be pulled back several levels behind where they felt they should be to iron out things they had never taken care of. They felt disrespected and I didn’t have any way to help. If it were an automated assessment, it would be no big deal, but while we’ve automated everything that is black and white, I’m actually looking at these videos and instructing each student individually with their hand position, timing, style and creativity. I think this involvement is what sets our program apart from other sites or apps, but it also makes it a lot more messy when a student has gotten themselves way in over their head instead of practicing skills in order. There’s no “quick fix” I can give to students who are at a level 6 in music theory but a level 2 in keys and scales. There’s just a lot of practicing to be done. And they can make progress in any area they want separately on the site with the Musipedia, live streams, and one-on-one help with video submissions, but there’s nothing I can do to rush a student through skills they just need to practice for the comprehensive piano academy.
- But here’s what I can offer to subscribers upon request: In the lower levels, it’s completely acceptable for experienced pianists to put all the skills in one video if you can get them all in the first try. Just press record and play through the 5-finger patterns and scales and stuff that most students would have to practice and submit individually. Let’s schedule the tests and get them out of the way. (Just be careful to not go too quickly. Some pros end up rushing on the metronome or making dumb mistakes on the tests because they had their eyes too far in the future.) Also, in the mean time, I can give you access to level 2 immediately even though we don’t normally do that, so we can at least rush those two levels. Depending on how quickly we can cross all that stuff off the list, we should be able to get you into some challenging material pretty quickly where you can grind away on stuff that makes sense in your head, but your hands can’t quite do yet.
- Bear with me and I’ll try to accommodate your skill level.
What level am I?
- It really depends on the topic. We do a topic per week and split that topic up into the 3 levels, but your level might change depending on the topic. (For example, I know beginning astrophysics would be way over my head, but even advanced alphabetization is going to be pretty easy for me.) So we recommend you participate based on the topic, not the level. Skip the weeks you don't care about, but if the week's topic looks interesting, maybe check out the beginner lesson and if that's easy, try the next level. But if you really want to stick with one level each week, you can use this general guideline:
- KIDS live lessons focus on a playing a song. Regardless of your level or age, you'll be able to take something away from every single lesson. For technique and a more traditional piano method, we recommend students also use their free enrollment in Klopol Piano Academy, where skills and classical training are emphasized. Most of our students are between the ages of 7 and 16.
- BEGINNING level lessons assume you have never heard of a piano before. You don't know the notes, the beats, how to read music, nothing. The key to the beginners lessons is to ask a lot of questions. Since it's a beginning lesson, all questions are game. No questions are too dumb.
- INTERMEDIATE level lessons are geared toward people who haven't had much, if any, formal training, but have played songs on the piano well enough to impress at least a couple friends. You don't have to be good at reading music or knowledgable about music theory, but again - ask questions! Everybody will be at a slightly different level - some a little above but many a little below, so if you don't understand something, ask it on behalf of that other confused student who is too chicken to ask.
- EXPERIENCED students have been playing for a while and are mostly looking for a new influence, some accountability, and to fill in some of the gaps they missed along the way. An experienced student is known by most of their friends as a "pianist" and has other musician friends too.
What songs will I be learning?
- You can check the schedule for the upcoming songs, but while we do apply the concepts to popular songs, in the adult program we focus on concepts more than specific pieces. We often take requests of how to apply the concepts to specific songs.
- In the kids program we use popular pop songs, children's songs, folk songs and theme songs from popular movies, tv and video games. The goal is to kind of trick kids into learning important musical skills by teaching them their favorite songs using those skills.
How would I unsubscribe if I wanted to take a break?
- Of course, we hate to see you go, but life happens and students have to take breaks for all kinds of reasons. We can see payments on our side, but we cannot initiate transactions or manage your PayPal payments on our side. PayPal gives instructions on how to cancel payments here and you can keep using Learn Piano Live because we'll keep your account active right up until the very day the next payment was due.