Multi-Level Group
Piano Lessons

Group piano lessons are a community-based music enrichment course that revolve primarily, though not exclusively, around the piano. Group lessons are a great option for holistic development of musicianship, music appreciation, music history, and music theory alongside building personal proficiency at the piano. We offer a number of group piano lesson times that will including a mixture of beginner to late-beginner students of all ages.

Learning alongside peers of varying levels offers group-piano lesson students a unique atmosphere for learning that private piano lessons and static-level group lessons can not. Some of these unique benefits include: developing musical ensemble skills (which usually pianists miss out on in the most fundamental years, being a non-standard orchestra or band instrument) and learning community-support skills. Beginners can be encouraged and helped by hearing peers that are further along in their studies, and accomplished late-beginners can become role-models and musical leaders for beginners while achieving new personal pianistic heights in creative and performance skills!

In a family oriented and communal learning environment, students will have opportunities to play group and solo repertoire alongside their peers. Group repertoire, chosen by the teacher, will be learned all together and solo “speciality” pieces will be assigned to individual students. Solo piano practice and individualized teacher attention is also built-in to our group lessons. Students will utilize individual headphones, plugged into digital piano workstations, to practice silently while the teacher provides some individual support to each student.

Though opportunities for group and private practice are offered during lessons, at-home practice is also required. Occasional “mini-performances” during class will address performance etiquette and tackle performance anxiety. Additionally, our group lessons will expose students to various composers and their works, and engage students in meditative, artistic, and listening development activities. Other enrichment activities will include everything from drumming and rhythm exercises to music theory and games!

Our group lessons run with a maximum of six students. Class-level placement is based on the student's piano proficiency determined by teacher and student availability, so a private intro lesson is a prerequisite to class placement.

Required Equipment

The expectation for all enrolled students is that the student will own or rent a piano, digital or acoustic, to practice on at home in between classes and lessons. We recommend, at minimum, a full-keyboard with 88 weighted keys to work with that has a sustain pedal. If you have further questions regarding acquiring an instrument, please contact Mary for more information.

Practice Expectations

Group piano students can anticipate needing at-home practice time to contribute to the team effort of learning in the classroom. The amount of time required is dependent on each student and the level of difficulty on the repertoire being learned. We ask students to be practicing a minimum of 15-20 minutes per practice session. Shorter at-home practice sessions with more frequency throughout the week are more effective than one long practice session per week for learning, retention, and developing any physical skill with muscle memory.