Sunday, May 31, 2015

Jazz Edge {my review of an online piano teacher}






Jazz Edge is a company that was founded by Willie Mynette, a Berklee College of Music Graduate.  They host a myriad of websites. One of those websites is PianoWithWillie





I was given access to the Studio Membership.

Studio Memberships Include:
  • Unlimited access to over 3,000 lesson chapters
  • Instant access anytime, any device, anywhere!
  • Personalized Piano Plans™
  • Access to our active user community
  • All styles from jazz, blues, latin, gospel, funk & rock
  • Live chat with our support team
  • Downloadable MP3 & MIDI tracks with sheet music
  • 30-day, Piano Success Guarantee

Piano With Willie allows you to teach yourself piano using online piano lessons.
At first glace after logging in, Piano With Willie Studio Access can seem very overwhelming.  There really is a lot to it. 

He emails you a step by step introduction plan. 

Step 1 has you watch a video on how to use the website and sends you some piano start resources.

Step 2 has you download and begin the 30 day success playbook.  This is 30 lessons of piano success, starting with the basics, like rhythm, technique and reading.  Then moving along to songs and improvisation, and more.  Each video lesson is from 5-12 minutes long.  Then you spend time practicing.

Step 3 has you moving on to more advanced piano foundations.

Step 4 gives you an even more in depth look at the website navigation.





Emily began with the 30 day success playbook and did not enjoy it, she felt it was way to easy so the beauty of this program is that after using it for a very short time she decided to move on.



She was able to click on the lessons tab at the top and look through the over 3000 lesson chapters available to her.  The sort function here is amazing and came in very useful! Using the lessons tab to choose what songs she wanted to learn and what techniques she wanted to work on was her favorite.  She needed that freedom. 



They also have a 22 point assessment that you can take to have a lesson plan created for you to tell you exactly what to work on next.  This is my favorite part, considering I can be indecisive. 

You will need an actual piano or a keyboard with at least 61 keys on it to use this appropriately.




Here is a picture of one of the videos.  You see Willie teaching, you see his hands actually playing and you see the keys he is playing light up.



Our thoughts and feelings:
Piano With Willie is NOT for the beginner pianist. They do have a beginner program that some of the other crew members reviewed.  Emily has taken piano lessons for a few years now, and then we had our big move.  I hadn’t had the chance to find her a new piano teacher yet, so we were both excited when this came up for review.  She was able to jump in and learn songs she wanted as well as some technique work that will help her with all of her piano playing.   This studio access is great for going at your own pace and being able to pick and choose what you want to learn.  What it lacks is accountability.  I had to be the one to hold her accountable for her lessons.  (You can add this accountability through Piano With Willie’s Premier Access.)  She was used to going to a piano teacher once a week and practicing all week long then going back and showing how she had improved.  With Piano With Willie he would teach her and then she would practice for that day and then move on the next day. This got her advancing quite quickly through piano.   Something that we found really wonderful about Piano With Willie is the ability to have the freedom to study piano when you want and what you want to work on.  You truly have the freedom to choose. 


Something else that we found really great about it is that I didn’t have to drive her anywhere.  She was able to “take piano lessons” late at night.  Being the night owl teenager that she is.




Piano With Willie can be found on social media at these locations:




Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PianoWithWillie
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PianoWithWillie
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/jazzedge
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/JazzEDge
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/jazzedge



To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

 Review Crew







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