My Approach
When I was at school, music lessons were largely about learning notes. Get the right notes, in the right order, at the right speed. That's not nothing — but it's a long way from everything.
The foundation
Learning music properly means learning to hear harmonies and understand chord structures. It means recognising patterns — in melodies, in rhythms, in the way music is put together. It means developing a sense of what the music is doing and saying. That includes being able to interpret the score in front of you too.
That's what lessons at Sairfeet Music are about.
The sense of adventure
One of the most important things I try to cultivate in students is a willingness to explore — and not to be afraid of getting things wrong.
"Mistakes are cool."— Richard Michael, jazz musician
"If you make friends with whichever note you happened to land on, it will give you directions to where you are trying to go."— Victor Wooten, bass guitarist
Both are saying the same thing in different ways. Wrong notes aren't failures — they're information. They point you somewhere. Learning to follow that somewhere, rather than stopping and going back, is one of the most liberating things a musician can learn.
The boring stuff
I want lessons to be enjoyable — but I also believe in honesty and hard work. The exploratory, adventurous side of music learning only works if the foundations are solid.
That means learning the notes. It means developing good technique. It means scales and arpeggios, which nobody loves but everybody needs. The technical side of playing isn't the enemy of creativity — it's what sets creativity free.
Using your brain
One of the things I find most fascinating about music — and most important to teach — is the relationship between the two halves of the musical brain, and how they need to work together.
The artistic side should be present from the very beginning. Before your fingers find a note, you should be able to hear the music in your mind's ear — to have a sense of what you're reaching for. As you progress, that artistic side takes on a directing role, shaping how the music feels, not just how it sounds.
The technical side, meanwhile, does the necessary work of learning — the notes, the fingering, the patterns. But it needs to learn, in time, to step back and let the artistic side do its job. The difficulty is that it often doesn't, especially under pressure. It wants to stay in control, to monitor and second-guess — and in doing so, it can disrupt the very thing it's trying to protect.
Anyone who has experienced performance nerves will know exactly what I mean.
Part of what I try to do is help students understand this tension, and learn to manage it.
The art of practising
How you practise matters at least as much as how long you practise — and understanding this has made a profound difference to my own progress. Helping students develop good practice habits is a strong thread running through everything I teach.
That means having clear objectives, knowing how to isolate and solve problems, and understanding that getting something right once isn't enough. It also means knowing when to vary your approach to keep things from becoming mechanical — and when to stop before frustration sets in.
There's also an important distinction between practising to learn a piece and practising to perform it. When you perform, your brain is under pressure — and playing for your teacher in a lesson is a form of performing too. Preparing for that pressure is something I work on specifically with students, using practice techniques designed to help the brain produce its best when it matters most.
Learn the music you want to play
Lessons at Sairfeet Music are built around you — what you want to play, what you want to achieve, and where you want your musical journey to go. That said, I'll sometimes suggest going somewhere unexpected if I think it will help you get where you're trying to go. That's part of the adventure.
A note on Piano Safari
For complete beginners, Piano Safari is where I start. Developed as an alternative to traditional teaching — though complementary with it rather than a replacement — it emphasises musical understanding, pattern recognition, and aural awareness from the very beginning. The aim is to learn to hear music, not just to read and reproduce it.
For returners, it can serve a different but equally valuable purpose. If, for example, a student has become too dependent on reading notation — playing the notes as written rather than truly hearing what they're playing — Piano Safari offers a way to break that habit and approach music from a fresh angle. It's a way of unlocking something that traditional learning sometimes, unintentionally, locks away.
Curious?
Get in touch for a no-obligation conversation. Tell me where you are with music, and where you'd like to go.
Get in touch