"It's not about stressing out over grade exams which are often unrelated to your musical goals. It's about having the right skills and knowing how to use them in a real situation. I meet so many people with piano grades who freeze when I ask them to play something, especially if it's not classical. It's great to be able to help those people." Shan

Example of Chord Movement

Shan's teaching is made up of 3 main areas;

1. Chord playing - knowing how to play every chord and learning how to make more beautiful sounding chords. Get movement in your chords (see video example above)
2. Understanding Chord Sequences and how music works

3. Soloing - Demystify note choices for solo lines Build your own solo lines and know how to add extra chromatic notes (see video example below)

 "It's knowing the language of music and how it works that is the key to success for students of all levels." Shan

Example of Solo Phrase Building

This approach will teach you the language and foundations (which there is no getting away from in any style) and later on you will learn how that relates to what you hear musicians doing.

You will play as you learn and learn from what you play! Shan believes that teacher and student should play music together. In complete contrast to many other piano teachers, he plays music with the student, in order to constantly provide musical examples, demos and to accompany the student in a productive and supportive atmosphere. Up to date technology is embraced as a useful tool for teaching, composition, accompaniment, scoring and recording.

The notation used in lessons is very basic and compared to classical music and is a blueprint (treble clef and chord symbols) leaving room for students to personalize their pieces once they are more fluent players. The biggest difference however is that You won't just learn to read one piece of music after another without "musical understanding". In other words, knowing what you have really done in each piece and how it works. That way, everything you play will teach you a new skill, not just another piece of music. If you've had lessons before then you could probably read a new piece on your own and besides, notes on the page alone, will not teach you to play a different style. The key is getting the balance between musical literacy and musical understanding. You will learn all the important ingredients and skills used by musicians, which are NOT on the page as well as those which are on the page. You will find that after a basic understanding is achieved, you will be gaining musical independence which will allow you to use your new skills to learn new music.