Information About Phil - Fulham teacher

Personal Description:

I am a pianist, teacher and composer/arranger/producer of over twenty years' experience. I trained at the Royal Northern College of Music as a first study pianist with Rysardt Bakst and graduated in 1989 with 1st class honours. I have also studied with Ella Pounder, Denis Matthews, Renna Kellaway and Bryce Morrison. At the RNCM, I was awarded the Elizabeth Hannah Lees major scholarship and appeared as soloist in numerous concerto and recital performances.

I won the Frederick Dawson Piano Prize for my classical piano playing but have always had a profound interest in other styles and aspects of music including singing. I have performed regularly for the last twenty years and I also compose prolifically in a wide range of styles. I now live in West London where I work as a freelance musician, composer and teacher.

My eclectic musicianship combines with a consummate technique to make me a musician and teacher of rare versatility and range. I champion a style of playing which embodies my teaching values of natural fluency and expressiveness.

Tutoring Experience:

I have been teaching and coaching (piano, voice, composition and production) for the past twenty years. Also until July 2007 I worked for 7 years as an A level music and music technology teacher at Aquinas 6th Form College in Stockport.

Tutoring Approach:

Piano Lessons

I have worked as a piano teacher for over 25 years. Having successfully taught in a conventional way in the past, I now teach piano using my own highly effective and innovative approach, where genuine musical fluency is fostered from the outset. Fluent musicians have the ability to play the music they can hear in their imagination, instantly, without working out. Rather like learning a language, students build a kind of musical “vocabulary” of rhythmic and tonal elements. This enables you to express yourself effortlessly and naturally, rather like speaking in your native language. This means that you develop the skills necessary to play by ear, improvise and when you look at a score to hear it instantly in your imagination.

Radical and effective training

Musical fluency training gives students a very significant edge as musicians, whatever style of music they choose to play, classical, jazz or pop etc. Whilst improvisation, fluent sight-reading and the ability to play by ear are obviously extremely useful skills generated by fluent musicianship training, another extremely important quality also emerges: people discover their own personal style or musical voice.

This is because fluent musicians have the ability to let go and play with a direct, authentic and free expressiveness that comes from within. So in my piano training method, the unique personality of the student must always be present from the outset. This ensures that your piano playing never sounds flat, stiff or mechanical which is a common problem for so many piano students. From the very first lesson, there is an effortless ease and flow to the way that students play using my method that sounds like a professional musician. As you develop, this natural ease works to generate powerful yet relaxed technique that makes you fully capable of playing fast and loud passages without fatigue as well as fostering control and precision necessary for delicate pianissimo music.

Solid foundations

I have developed a radical new system of keyboard musicianship training that lays solid foundations for studying any kind of music. It follows a clear scheme of work and I provide all the materials that you will need. Once you have completed my core training, you may go on to take grade examinations in either classical or jazz piano. With fluent skills in place, students can learn to play pieces and scales after very short preparation times. Learning music quickly is another important useful effect of being musically fluent. Being musically fluent, you can also expect to find aural tests and sight-reading tests very easy indeed. All this ensures the achievement of very high marks.

In conventional piano training methods, the skills that most students acquire to pass examinations, decay rapidly. This is because, playing by rote is not deeply conscious but rather shallow and automatic; learning new music becomes increasingly difficult and their confidence suffers more and more over time. Even passing grade 8 does not guarantee lifelong skills. Fluent piano skills, on the other hand, are fully conscious and clear and do not decay very much at all, even over a very long time. Playing the piano fluently is like riding a bicycle: you never forget how to do it!

Discover a way of practising that sets your playing free

Students who may have completed their more conventional studies, perhaps having graduated from Music College, often seek to open up their musical horizons and discover themselves as artists. I offer powerful support and guidance with this process, specialising in freeing up their technique and fostering real musicianship to help them access their true, natural inner musician.

I work in a very practical way, helping students make their piano practice truly effective. How you practise – the quality more than the quantity of your practice – is the most important determining factor for progress and motivation. I work closely with students in piano lessons to assess the quality of their focus and ensure that there is freedom and ease in their playing at all times, both physically and mentally.