Recommended for students 9-years-old and up. Presented By ----------- Cherry Hill Academy of Piano & Guitar Accelerated Piano - Page 1
What Is Accelerated Piano? Accelerated Piano is a direct, straightforward system of learning piano that allows students to learn popular songs, while taking into consideration the skill level, playing experience, age, musical preferences and availability of each individual student. Times have changed over the past 40 years. Students have changed as well. Therefore the way piano is taught must also change. Students are involved in more after-school activities than ever before. In addition, the amount of homework that students get on a daily basis has also increased. These added demands have significantly reduced the amount of time that students can devote to their music education. The extremely high demands of traditional piano lessons, coupled with the increased academic and extracurricular activities being placed on kids today, has made it difficult for piano students to make any type of long-term, consistent commitment to the formal study of piano, and music in general. Accelerated Piano - Page 2
In addition, traditional piano instruction and its emphasis on classical music and all of its complexities, is the number one contributing factor to the significant decline in formal piano lessons. The YouTube Phenomenon With the emergence of YouTube, students can now learn their favorites songs by watching countless online video tutorials. There is no ignoring this phenomenon. It s here to stay for the foreseeable future, and for anyone who wants to save money on private piano lessons, YouTube seems to be the best option going. The Advantages of Online Video Instruction Besides the financial savings, piano tutorials on YouTube can be accessed any time day or night. The convenience factor alone is a major selling point. Regardless of how many activities you re involved in, being able to watch an online video tutorial at 2 o clock in the afternoon or 2 o clock in the morning will definitely fit the busiest of schedules. Accelerated Piano - Page 3
The Disadvantages of Online Video Instruction Unfortunately, the disadvantages of online video tutorials far outweigh the advantages. I ve lost count in the number of students who I have taught who have tried to teach themselves how to play piano via YouTube Piano Tutorials and failed miserably. Unfortunately, anyone with a little bit of piano playing ability, a camcorder and a YouTube account can upload their own piano tutorials. Let me give you my short list of problems with most online tutorials and the countless so-called online instructors: Serious and noticeable lack of teaching ability. Most often, no teaching credentials whatsoever. No student feedback. No instructor feedback. Lack of detailed technical training for the student. A high percentage of online tutorials demonstrate a severe lack of in-depth instruction. Glaring lack of playing technique by many online instructors. Tutorials lack any real content for a true understanding of the material being taught. Most tutorials just teach notes from the song with no real instruction in reading, structure, rhythm and harmonic analysis. Accelerated Piano - Page 4
I could go on and on, but the bad habits that are being created from the lack of any real instruction, are habits that will not be easily fixed for many of these YouTube students who may one day decide to get proper instruction from a qualified professional piano teacher. I can truly say that this has become an epidemic. Fortunately, it s NOT an epidemic with fatal consequences and I doubt it will make headline news any time soon. The Solution However, as a full-time piano teacher, I m seeing an alarming trend that doesn t bode well for this Internet generation, and the next few generations to come. I ve experienced this growing downward trend and similar pre-youtube trends in my profession for the past 25 years. Knowing about the decreasing amount of practice time and limited availability that my students faced, I began to develop a course of piano study that not only addressed these problems, but also incorporated and embraced the developments in technology, (e.g. professional online tutorials, ipods, ipads, etc.), but with supervision from a professional instructor. Accelerated Piano - Page 5
The results that I ve experienced firsthand over the past 16 years with this new way of teaching piano has been nothing short of spectacular. Students who were on the brink of quitting piano gradually started to gain a solid comprehension of how music worked after just 3 to 4 months of study using my new piano method. Those with 6 to 12 months of training under my new system were able to gain an understanding that many piano students don t grasp after 10 years of traditional piano lessons. And students with 18 or more months under my new system had developed skills comparable to professional piano players with 15 or more years of playing experience. Please keep in mind; these are not your grandmother s piano lessons. My accelerated piano learning system is geared toward pop, rock and jazz piano, and incorporates over two dozen playing shortcuts designed to bypass many of the formal concepts that are still trying to be taught in traditional piano lessons. Click the link directly below if you missed the video presentation of just some of my students who have trained using my new Accelerated Piano method! www.cherryhillacademy.com/accelerated-piano-students-cherry-hill.html Accelerated Piano - Page 6
Reading Standard Music Notation With the reduced practice time that many students are dealing with these days, getting sufficient time to learn how to read standard music notes is the biggest issue facing piano students who are still attempting to take traditional, classical piano lessons. A high percentage of piano students quickly lose interest in classical music, resulting in a negative and unsuccessful learning experience, and turning them away from music! I know this is a nationwide issue, as I have experienced this with my own students, and have communicated with other piano teachers from our school and all across the country with similar experiences. The challenges that I faced as I began to develop a new approach to learning piano were overwhelming. It has taken me 16 years to design, develop and gradually implement my new piano learning system within the afore mentioned time frame. I ve had a few setbacks along the way but the renewed interest and the dramatic increase in practice times among 80% of my students, has brought me to this moment. Accelerated Piano - Page 7
Having experienced the consistent turnaround among my students, I truly believe that it s time to release my new piano method to the public on a limited basis. However, as simple as my new method is, it can t be released without sufficient planning, organization and proper instructor training. While there is room for flexibility, which is a natural part of my new piano method, a firm adherence to the general principles of my course is crucial and imperative if piano students are to have the same level of success! As for the setbacks that I experienced over the past 16 years; they were the result of my own deviation from my original course outline, which is why it is so important for proper instructor training and a firm adherence to the general principles of my initial course design. My Primary Design Objective Find a way to limit, reduce, and if possible, eliminate the frustration that many students were feeling when it came to learning how to read standard music notes. The Answer: A New Piano Learning System The 3 basic elements of music are melody, harmony and rhythm. In traditional piano lessons, these elements are rarely taught in a clear and concise manner. Accelerated Piano - Page 8
In my new piano method, these 3 elements are the heart and soul of each lesson and are the reasons why students are having so much success. Traditional, classical piano instruction is inherently slow paced, which results in a loss of interest and enthusiasm among students within the first 12 to 18 months of lessons. My Accelerated Piano method is a direct, clear-cut system of learning piano that gets students to the real meat and potatoes of what music is all about within the first few months of lessons instead of the normal long drawn-out process of conventional learning methods. As I just mentioned, the 3 basic elements of music are the heart and soul of my new piano method. Once a student is familiar with the names of the piano keys, which takes roughly two lessons, they are introduced to the three basic elements of music without any delay. Accelerated Piano gets right to the heart of how music works significantly faster than traditional piano lessons. As I stated earlier in this report, students studying my new piano method understand more about music in the first 3 to 4 months of instruction, than their counterparts after 10 years of traditional piano studies. Accelerated Piano - Page 9
It s amazing to see, and to be as direct as I can, it s not that difficult to keep a student s interest when they are engaged and part of the learning process. Students are more engaged when they understand what they are learning. My new piano method continually focuses on the 3 basic elements of music, which are the inner workings of music. Whatever it is that you re studying, you can do so much more with it when you know how it works. When you can take it apart and put it back together, there is no mystery to it. My name is Guy Faux, and I am the developer of Accelerated Piano. I took thirteen years of traditional piano lessons as a kid, and after that time and being on the brink of quitting, I was no closer to understanding how music worked than when I began lessons at the age of 5-and-ahalf. Music was a complete mystery to me. Accelerated Piano Eliminates The Mystery. Teaching students how to take a song apart and put it back together, is just one of the goals of my method, and for the past 16 years I have taught my students the inner workings of music. My students are highly engaged and interested because they understand how music works. They understand how to take a song apart and put it back together. Accelerated Piano - Page 10
The mystery is gone. It has been replaced by an understanding of how music really works. To learn the key ingredient that transformed my students who were on the brink of quitting, to students who became highly engaged and motivated to practice every day, click the link below. www.cherryhillacademy.com/accelerated-piano-the-secret-formula.html For more information about Guy Faux s Accelerated Piano Method Call: (856) 662-6855 Accelerated Piano - Page 11