As a Kid, I Struggled Too When I was a kid, we didn't have all the activities children have today.  We came home from school, went out to play,  and came inside when it was time to eat. But my mom did one thing for me:  she made sure I had piano lessons. I remember walking the two blocks  to my piano teacher's studio  once a week,  sitting at his piano, and feeling... stuck. I was the shyest kid in my entire school.  But when I played piano,  my shyness didn't seem to matter — it went away. Still, piano lessons were a struggle. Sometimes it felt like I was trying to fit a square peg  into a round hole. It wasn't fun. It wasn't what I expected. I never actually played music I liked. Reading notes never felt easy.  The music pages only got harder and harder,  with more and more notes. I wouldn't practice anywhere near as much  as I was supposed to.  Often, I wouldn't practice at all. Sometimes I'd play right before my lesson,  trying to remember the song just enough  to fool my teacher  into thinking I had practiced. I never felt satisfied or looked forward to lessons. Even after years of traditional lessons,  I never felt like a real "musician."  I always felt like something was missing. I Almost Gave Up on Piano Entirely There was a time when I got so disheartened,  I almost stopped playing. Maybe I was finally at the top of the mountain  of what my teachers could teach me.  But like standing on a mountaintop,  I could suddenly look out  over all the roads I had traveled  to get there — and I began  to see things in a different way. I was ready to move to a new plateau. Then Everything Changed: I Discovered Chords I finally found a teacher who taught differently  than anyone before. He showed me how to play chords. No teacher had ever taught me chords before.  No one had even suggested they were important. There was something about playing chords  that seemed to open a magic box for me. It was like I'd found the key  to something I'd been searching for  my whole life. It lit a fire in me. I started researching how real musicians played,  and I found that the differences  were like night and day. Real musicians played completely differently  from the way I had learned. Using my newfound knowledge  of chords and lead sheets,  I suddenly could play  all kinds of songs — faster,  and so much easier. Whereas before I had tediously learned  to play one song at a time,  one note at a time,  now I could look at any song  and play it almost instantly. It blew my mind. I Realized the Notes on Sheet Music Were Just... Chords When I looked more deeply  at traditional sheet music,  I suddenly saw something shocking: Almost ALL the notes in the left hand (the bottom staff)  were simply notes  that belonged in a chord! Those single notes I'd spent YEARS learning,  one by one by one,  were just chords  that had been broken up. Here was a shortcut  I'd NEVER been shown. A window opened.  I started seeing things I'd never seen before. I was so excited I wanted to shout it from the rooftops:  This was SO MUCH EASIER! The time I spent learning about chords  was eye-opening,  and it was the most important thing  I had ever learned about music. I Found My Superpower I've always had a superpower:  I take things that are hard  and make them easy. I've done it all my life. Suddenly, I could see music clearly.  I started seeing everything I'd learned  from a different angle,  from a new perspective. I realized piano had been taught to me  in the hardest way I could imagine. I went back and forth between  resentment (all that wasted time!)  and elation (I finally figured it out!). To me, traditional teaching was all backwards.  For example, learning to read  one single note at a time. I experimented and found it was easier to learn notes  in little groups — and when I did that,  it became so much easier  and quicker to grasp. I started to see that there were so many things  about learning piano  that could be made easier. I felt like I had found the Holy Grail of music. I started going down a different path.  I began re-creating everything I had learned,  simplifying it,  seeing it from a whole different angle. And gosh darn it,  it worked — better than my wildest dreams. My own playing went through the roof.  Suddenly it sounded better,  like my heart and soul were finally coming through. It not only sounded better,  but it was easier to do! The Big A-Ha Moment It was like a light bulb went off in my head. I was suddenly pulling out EVERY song I loved  and playing it, because it was SO EASY. But part of me was mad, too. Why didn't ANY of my piano teachers  show me this before? Why did they make me go through all that tedious,  boring stuff that didn't even get me  to this place I was at now? I thought: I HAVE to share all this.  I HAVE TO teach people this new way of playing piano. I Started My Piano Studio During this time, I was moving and had bought a condo.  I bought a second-hand, 2-year-old piano before I even moved in. I was in heaven with my beautiful piano —  but I played SO MUCH  that my neighbors started to complain. You could hear everything through the walls, the floors, the ceilings.  I felt guilty when I realized how much I'd been disturbing them. The end result: I had to either move my piano  or stop playing it. Not playing was NOT an option. Sometimes I feel like there's somebody on a higher plane  watching out for us.  I felt it then. An office space just down the road from my condo  became vacant.  They needed a business to fill the empty space. I got the craziest idea:  I would teach my new method to students.  I could move my piano there,  play as much as I wanted,  and fulfill my dream of teaching what I'd discovered. So I inquired,  made sure no one would be bothered by piano playing,  and signed a year-long lease. I had professional movers bring my piano to the space. I took a deep breath  and started advertising for students. The Results Were Incredible I opened the doors to my piano studio and started teaching. As students came,  I kept improving what I taught —  making ALL the parts better and easier.  I filled in parts that had been missing.  I completely overhauled the way reading was taught  to make it far better. And now I'm proud to say: I started teaching my own unique method,  and I was surprised at how my students responded. They WANTED to be at their lessons.  They showed up EVERY week.  They came EARLY.  They lingered afterward, NOT in a hurry to leave. What most surprised me  was how EAGER they were to learn more every week,  because it felt so simple. There was NO struggle,  and they got very satisfying results  with MUCH LESS effort. I knew I was onto something groundbreaking.  I knew I was on the right path. Even 7-Year-Olds Were Learning Advanced Chords I had 7-year-olds who learned DOZENS of chords easily,  without struggle,  because it seemed like a simple game  the way I showed them. With all the chords they knew,  they were ALREADY AHEAD  of what I'd seen college music students learn. And I found nothing made students feel more motivated  than getting great and satisfying results  EASILY and QUICKLY. My reputation grew.  Within a short time,  most of my students came from referrals  sent by my other students. The Most Common Thing I Heard After Lessons: "That was easy!" Even from students who were scared or hesitant at first. During This Time, I Also Went to College While I was teaching in my studio,  I took music classes at a nearby college. It was fascinating — and frustrating —  to see how the college was teaching  the same concepts I'd already figured out,  but in the hardest way possible. I watched college students struggle  with things that my 7-year-olds  were learning easily in my studio. Sometimes I'd share little tips  with my college classmates  about how to learn the material more easily.  The look on their faces when something finally clicked  was priceless. It confirmed what I already knew:  the traditional method makes things  unnecessarily hard. My method was not only easier —  it was faster and more effective. Then Came Olivia One student, Olivia, particularly took to the chords I taught her. She loved The Phantom of the Opera  and desperately wanted to play songs from that musical. Her mom had bought her an adult Phantom of the Opera book  with all the songs, but it was far beyond her ability.  She couldn't play anything from it. The book looked intimidating —  lots of notes all over the pages.  It scared her.  She was convinced she'd never be able  to play any songs from that book. I taught her chords, and how to use them  in the novel way I'd developed. She loved chords and really took to them. A few weeks later, she came into a lesson  absolutely beaming. She was playing one of the songs from that book,  singing along with it,  playing in an advanced-sounding way  that left me surprised and delighted. Olivia was ten years old. She got to that place just by playing the chords  in the easy way I'm going to show you,  and adding a few little embellishments. When I saw what she did —  and when I saw other students after her  do the same thing with music they loved —  I knew I had to teach this to everyone. I had to tell everyone  they didn't need to struggle anymore. I had to put all that I'd created together  so that everyone who ever wanted to play piano  could learn by taking an easy path,  instead of climbing the hardest paths  to get up that mountain. I Had to Show Them It Really Wasn't Hard I wanted to help everyone else  who wanted to rise up  and feel like they were on top of the world. I started thinking about how I could put that together  into a complete program. Then Life Got in the Way I had some family issues  and had to close my piano studio. I packed up one big U-Haul truck  and moved a thousand miles away,  across the country,  to be near family that needed me. But I didn't forget the results my students had gotten,  and my unique way of teaching,  and how it had changed their lives. The very first thing the movers put on that truck  was my piano —  I sure wasn't going to leave that behind! Life got in the way for a while.  I had other things I needed to do,  and I put my piano dream on the back burner  as I attended to family matters. Eventually, I settled into my new home  and, after a couple of years,  I started teaching again —  this time from my home. The same magic happened.  Students loved learning this way.  The method worked just as beautifully  as it had in my studio. Between my studio years and my home teaching,  I taught piano for over 15 years,  refining and perfecting this method  with hundreds of students. Some of those early students  still keep in contact with me today,  sending me Christmas and birthday cards. Then COVID Changed Everything In early 2020, when COVID hit,  I had to close my doors to students. Some students were devastated  and didn't want to stop their lessons.  They asked me, "Can we do lessons on Zoom?" Honestly, I didn't know ANYTHING  about how Zoom worked.  I'm not techy.  I didn't know if it could even work for piano lessons. But my students REALLY, REALLY  wanted to continue.  They didn't want COVID to stop their progress. So I figured it out. I learned how to use Zoom.  I bought a Logitech camera  so I could show two views —  one of my face talking,  and another overhead view  of my hands on the piano. And it worked beautifully. We were able to continue lessons online,  and students kept making incredible progress. That Was the Turning Point Teaching on Zoom changed EVERYTHING for me. It opened my eyes  to something I'd NEVER considered before:  I could reach MORE people online  than I EVER could in person. For 15 years, I'd been teaching  one student at a time,  in one location. But online?  I could help HUNDREDS —  maybe THOUSANDS —  of people. Then Something Happened That Changed My Life Forever Right after COVID started to decline a little,  a friend of mine  who worked at an upscale retirement home  near my house said they needed help.  She suggested I take a part-time job there  and work alongside her. Well, they had a beautiful  baby grand piano. I don't know if that influenced my decision,  but I interviewed and took the job. I would often play that beautiful piano  after my work was done. And the Most Amazing Thing Happened The residents would seem to come out of the woodwork  to listen to me. After I finished playing,  SO MANY of them would come up to me,  one by one. And I heard the most heartbreaking,  beautiful stories. "I always wanted to play piano..." "My childhood lessons didn't work out..." "My teacher told me I had no talent..." "I wish I could play like you..." Their heartfelt stories  and emotional, longing faces  went straight to my heart. Some of them had carried these feelings —  this sense of failure,  this belief that they "couldn't" —  for 40, 50, sometimes 60 YEARS. It broke my heart. That's When I Found My Mission In that moment,  I knew EXACTLY  who I was meant to teach. Not the students who'd found  the easy pathway up the mountain — who rose joyfully with my guidance,  step by step. But the ones standing at the bottom,  looking up. The ones who believed that mountain  was impossible to climb. The ones who'd been told that summit  wasn't meant for them. The ones who felt  they'd FAILED. The ones who'd been TOLD  they weren't good enough. The ones who'd carried that pain in their hearts  for DECADES. I wanted more than anything to show them  that they COULD do what  I'd just done on that piano. That all those years of believing  they couldn't do it  were based on a LIE —  a broken teaching method,  NOT a lack of talent. I wanted to show them it WASN'T hard.  Even though they'd carried the memory  of how hard it had been  in their souls for so many years. At that moment, I felt like I'd been on a long journey  and had finally arrived home. I had found my people. I had found my students. That's When Rise Piano Academy Was Born I started thinking:  What if I could take EVERYTHING I'd learned,  everything I'd created and refined over 15 years,  and put it into a comprehensive online program? What if I could reach all those people —  not just the ones in that retirement home,  but THOUSANDS of adults  all over the world who felt like they'd failed,  who thought it was too late,  who believed they didn't have talent? I could show them the truth:  They CAN play piano.  It IS easy when taught the right way.  And it's NOT too late. I got SO excited by that idea. So I started learning how to create an online academy —  complete with ALL the breakthroughs  I'd discovered over the years. Bit by bit, it all started to come together. And now, years later,  it's FINALLY complete. Creating Rise Piano Academy Is the Thing I'm Most Proud Of Of all the mistakes I've made in my life,  and all the dumb stuff I did,  this is the ONE SHINING THING  I am proud of and that I did right. This is NOT simply compressing a very long,  torturous journey into 6 months. It's taking a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT pathway. And there is NO torture along the way.  NONE of the tedious, unnecessary stuff  I had to put up with in my childhood lessons. With traditional lessons,  they're going to teach you the VERY LONG,  VERY HARD way  to get to a mediocre result —  one that isn't satisfying. Traditional lessons aren't even going to cover the things  I'll show you about how the pros play. My superpower is taking something hard and making it simple. I've seen a LOT of other piano courses,  and ALL of them contain some variation  of the traditional method. What I'm presenting is COMPLETELY original.  COMPLETELY unique. I've NEVER seen anyone else do what I do,  because I invented it all myself. It is TRULY revolutionary and breakthrough. It's completely different from the traditional method  that's been taught for hundreds of years. For over 15 years, I took total beginners  and quickly coached them into piano players  who sounded like pros —  first in my studio,  then in my home,  then on Zoom,  and even with the residents at that retirement home  who thought their dream was gone FOREVER. I had re-created piano education,  and when I saw it was working —  even for people in their 70s and 80s  who'd given up DECADES ago —  I got REALLY excited, and I just kept going. Now, after more than 15 years of teaching and refining,  I have a program that works INCREDIBLY well. Introducing Rise Piano Academy.

📌 WEEK ZERO: Getting Started (Available Immediately Upon Enrollment) Welcome & Orientation How to get a piano or keyboard for free Warm-up sessions to ease you in MODULE 1: Foundation & Keyboard Layout (Weeks 1 - 2) Understanding the keyboard layout Hand position and posture The basics that make everything else easy No boring theory — just what you need to start playing MODULE 2: Chords Are Everything (Weeks 3 - 5) Learn chords the easiest way you've ever seen (no counting required!) Master the famous "4 chords" that unlock hundreds of songs Discover how to easily learn dozens more chords Understand how chords are the foundation of all modern music This is where the magic happens. MODULE 3: Playing Like the Pros - Lead Sheets & Accompaniment (Weeks 6 - 8) What lead sheets are and how pros use them How to play accompaniment style (so you or someone else can sing along) How to quickly pick up any song and play it Add the melody on top of your chords This is the skill that will make you feel like a real pianist. MODULE 4: Scales Made Simple (Weeks 9 - 10) Learn scales in a way that even a 7-year-old can do (because I've had them do it!) Understand why scales matter Use scales to make your playing sound professional MODULE 5: Reading Music the Easy Way (Weeks 11 - 13) Learn to read notes in small groups (not one by one!) Understand rhythm without confusion Read music in a way that actually makes sense Note: You'll already be playing before you get here—reading comes later, when it's easier. MODULE 6: Adding Your Secret Sauce - Advanced Techniques (Weeks 14-16) Add embellishments that make people stop and listen Develop your own unique style Play with emotion and confidence Make any song your own WEEKS 17-26: Practice, Refinement & Mastery Continue weekly coaching calls Master your favorite songs Get personalized feedback Prepare for your final showcase