Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Piano Career Academy anyone? Alternative Piano Lessons

I had been taking lessons with an extremely skilled pianist and teacher, but unfortunately, working full time, I do not have the time to invest to justify the price of $45 lessons every other week.

Searching on the web, I came across Piano Career Academy. The woman has done numerous youtube videos, and this new site is the newest iteration of lessons.

Link here->http://www.pianocareeracademy.com/

Quite unique...

"The only holistic piano community and coaching program on the internet. Discover the secrets of the Russian piano school. Online piano lessons available."

What caught my eye with this was the quality of the main instructor, or owner of the site, LLinca Vartic, Youtube video tutorials.

Price of monthly access? $45 last time I checked.

Anybody have any experience with these online lesson type of places, or is it not worth the money?

I would consider myself able to practice and teach myself, just in need of that little bit extra guidance/teaching

I didn't have time to listen to the whole presentation, and there was no way to fast forward. Does she ever show anything in that demo? Does she ever elucidate beyond vague terms what she is offering? You may want to ask in the ABF if anyone has tried this.

Yeah...Wasn't sure which forum to put this in...feel free to move it.

And no, there is no elaboration on exactly what the holistic method is based on, other than the Russian piano school.

If you check out some of her youtube videos from the past...the tutorials she gives are fairly good.

By reading her blog and watching video tutorials on pedaling techniques, I improved my performance of a piece drastically, cause she covered things that my $45 piano teacher never really got around too.

Site disclaimer I found:
"PianoCareerAcademy.com is not a step-by-step piano playing course. The intent of the author is only to offer information (via a private forum) of general nature to help you in your quest for a fulfilled musical career, a more productive and meaningful piano practice and a better understanding of the pianistic interpretative principles."

So...like a paid version of Piano World...or perhaps something more personal and direct in the form of lessons and more actual instructor interaction.

Joe, I haven't looked at her website, nor do I plan to. It's too time consuming. But consider, what does she mean by monthly access? Is this just to look at past videos? Surely she doesn't mean 4 hours of instruction at $10/hr.

More likely, you're looking for a teacher who will Skype with you and give one on one lessons via the Internet. I recall that several teachers here do it, but not as their main bread and butter. I don't know their rates, but I'm willing to guess they're not giving away their services.

Actually, considering the very low fee for instruction, it's amazing you got anything of value from these lessons.

They could have been for 30 minute lessons. Many teachers in my area with an MA charge $45-50 for the half-hour.

I haven't looked at the site either, Joe, but it seems to me as though you'd get more from going to monthly lessons ($45 being the same price as the site) and posting recordings of yourself on YT/somewhere for others to critique you where they can.

Advice to any adult taking 30 minute lessons. Stop immediately and move to an hour. A 30 min lesson is 25 min at best. You're barely starting and it's time to wrap up. My 50 min students are always surprised when I stop the lesson and tell them I'll see them next week. Even my 90 min students find themselves so involved, that they are not aware of the passage of time.

KV, I cannot imagine that low of a rate in Santa Barbara. Do these teachers even play the piano? What are their credentials? Sounds more like day care rates (we have relatives who teach in SB and know they do not suffer such abysmal rates).

$45-$50 per half hour in Santa Barbara sounds about right to me. That's what teachers are charging per hour in the central valley of CA, so that's double for SB.

John, I completely agree. 30 minutes just doesn't cut it, really. I'll have private lessons at my university starting this week but we're only given 30 minutes. I don't know how much we'll manage in that time... An hour seems too short sometimes too!

I should have clarified by the way: the rates I mentioned earlier were in Orange County of CA, where the average hour lesson is about $50. Now I'm afraid to find additional private lessons here in SB!!

I have FMS, and I never know when I will have a rough day where I can't practice so my teacher and I worked out that a one hour lesson every other week would be better than a weekly one -- and it's working out fine. I'm in the Tampa Bay area and my teacher gets $25.00 a half hour, so I pay $50.00 every other week.

It's interesting to see what lessons cost in different areas of the country.

@kayvee - My son's music lessons in college were part of the music program so 30 minutes was not billed to him but to the university program. The music teacher offered to have him pay $30 more for the full hour. It worked out well because as you said, 30 minutes is not enough at that level.

I was able to see a few of her videos. She teaches the things a good teacher teaches, but I wonder if they can come across in a video. I saw something that I'm working on right now. Her demonstration lasts maybe 10 or 20 seconds in the middle of a lot of talk. I wonder whether the demonstrated thing might not need to be broken down and taught in stages. And also whether this can be done by video, or whether it wouldn't be better to work directly with a teacher and get feedback. The elephant in the room is that so often students who do engage a teacher end not being taught what they need, and so we look for other resources.

The words "holistic" etc. is just a euphemism for what music study should be about. But how often is it?

Addendum: The other video I watched seemed thorough.

Yes, I will speak to the teacher about that; however, I know a lot of teachers require students to sign up for an extra unit to get that other half hour, but they'll end up paying for it.

On the plus side, it's more worth it than a website of videos you can probably find elsewhere:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Lypur

(Not that I necessarily endorse this and think the website the OP posted isn't good, but it makes you wonder why there is a need to pay for something that you can readily find all over the internet if it isn't targeted to a specific goal or need.)

Joe, give it a try for a month. It's only an investment of $45, and your initial look at the site helped your playing. Good for Mme. Vartic. Clearly it's not a brand of Skype teaching, but more self-instruction.
Keep us posted.

I'm an old guy who, after not playing piano for over 50 years, decided to get back to it 3.5 years ago. During the intervening years I played clarinet for much of that time. Piano was to be a hobby where I would try to do it without a one on one teacher. My teacher was to mainly be the internet and any other info I could glean therefrom.

I've made a lot of progress, mostly with ragtime, but with a little classical as well. The Alexander Technique has helped as well, but mostly with pain issues. But I reached a point where I was stuck. I could not play mistake free, it is sloppy, often awkward and uncomfortable, and otherwise unrefined in the manner of which Ilinca Vartic speaks in her free presentations. I've seen other presentations that I found very impressive, particularly those of Josh Wright, Living Piano and Bach Scholar. But Ilinca's presentations have been the most impressive of all.
I now feel I need guidance that is more in depth. I hesitate about the one on one teacher situation because in my area I don't have confidence in knowing I can pick the right teacher for me, if in fact there is one. So right now I'm considering Ilinca's Piano Career Academy. It is also the reason I came to this forum hoping to get some expert opinions on this approach. I might add, though, that another aspect holding me back is that I know I don't practice enough. At most, I only get in two hours a day, and often its less than that. I fear that with only a year with Ilinca, I will be overwhelmed and will come away with only being able to tackle a small part of what she has to offer over the year. I'm writing this because I felt my situation might be of benefit to some of you and also that you might possibly have some thoughts of benefit to me.

One to two hours a day at the piano marks you as a very committed adult pianist student: you would be a dream for the right teacher to work with!

If you subscribe to this online program, clearly you will be working at your own pace, and absorbing what can absorb. I can't think of a single reason not to try it. It's pretty inexpensive: try it for a few months, or a year.

But don't rule out eventually finding a "real" teacher, preferably one who has some experience with adult learners.

Thanks, Peter, for your comments. I'm living in the Buffalo NY area for which I'm sure you have some familiarity. I don't hear good comments pertaining to teachers here.
Pace is a concern. I do want to be sure I can move fast enough so as to get my "money's worth" so to speak. She seems to favor Chopin which is a good thing - can't say enough for how incredibly awesome his music is.

My mother teaches Piano and charges 130$ month for 4 1/2 hour lessons. Hope this info help someone.

Despite what Attaboy may hear, I have no doubt there are splendid piano teachers in and around Buffalo, NY. He should find one - and if he wishes, supplement his studies with videos from Mme Vartic.

Well just to give two examples, when I asked one of the best pianists in the area, a personal friend, for a recommendation he stated I'm probably just as well off continuing on my own. Another fine pianist, who has impressive youtube presentations, got his early training from area piano teachers. His comments indicated that he really didn't realize how poor his training had been until he began studying with out of the area teachers.
I also asked for a recommendation from a classical viola/cello player of some renown in the area. I didn't get what I felt was an encouraging response. Of course, I came to this area later in life so I suppose its possible I've missed some valuable resources. I've never heard mention of a stand out piano teacher in this area. In contrast, in my much smaller home town of Scranton Pa. there was one teacher that was considered the best and in my youth this was well known to aspiring pianists. I think its possible that with both Eastman in Rochester and the fine music department at Fredonia, both an hours drive away, teachers in Buffalo area have been overlooked.
Making a recommendation that "I should find one" is fine, and I appreciate your suggestion. But how does one go about that in a quality way that doesn't consume a lot of research time?? One thing I want to dearly avoid is spending a lot of time and money on going thru piano teachers to find the right one.