Pedal
A hand resting on the keys of a piano, lit from the side in a dark room.

Piano lessons for adults who always meant to learn

Stopped at nine? Never started? Can play one song and want a second? You are every one of my students. Weekly lessons in my front room, one upright piano, and no children's books.

Book a first lesson

Hello, I'm Elin

I taught children for twelve years and noticed that their parents, waiting in the hall, were listening harder than the children were. So I stopped teaching children. Adults practise less, worry more and learn faster than anyone expects, including themselves.

Lessons are forty-five minutes, one-to-one, the same time each week. We start with a piece you actually want to play, not with scales.

Hands over a grand piano keyboard in almost complete darkness.

"I am sixty-one and I played Satie to my grandson on Sunday. Nobody told me I could."

Student, second year

Student evenings

Everyone plays one thing, however short. Tea first, nobody claps too loudly.

10.17

Front room

Autumn pieces

11.21

Church hall

Duets night

12.12

Front room

Carols, badly

01.30

Front room

New starters' first piece

03.13

Church hall

Film music

05.08

The garden

Year-end, weather allowing

A man playing an upright piano from an open book of sheet music.

A book of your own

Every student gets a plain notebook on the first day. Everything goes in it: the piece, the fingering that finally worked, the bar we will fix next week. By the end of a year it is the best piano method you will ever own, because it was written for your hands.

See the levels

Three levels, no exams

You can take graded exams if you want them. Most adults do not, and that is fine.

Two hands on the white keys of a piano, one finger pressed down.

Never played

Reading notes, both hands, a real piece by week six.

£32 a lesson
Hands in dark sleeves moving across a piano keyboard.

Played as a child

Getting back what you had, then going past it.

£34 a lesson
Hands playing an old upright piano by a window with plants.

Playing already

Pedalling, phrasing, and playing in front of people.

£36 a lesson
Soft, blurred hands on a piano keyboard by a window with red walls. A hand reaching across piano keys in warm, low evening light.

Before your first lesson

You do not need a piano yet

For the first two months a keyboard with 61 keys is enough. I will help you choose a real piano when you know you are staying — and not before.

Cut your nails

Short enough that you hear the note, not the click.

Bring one piece of music

Anything you love, from anywhere. We will find a version of it you can play this term.

Fifteen minutes a day

Not an hour on Sunday. That is the only homework rule.

Two hands blurred in motion over the keys of an upright piano.