Customized🎹 Piano

Piano Customized

Piano Customized: a one-to-one syllabus built around your goal — an ABRSM or Trinity grade, an audition programme, or the repertoire you love.

Book a Free Demo See what’s covered

Subject: Piano
Level: Customized
Format: 1-on-1, online
Ages: 6 and up

About the course

Piano Customized is for students who already have a target in mind: an ABRSM or Trinity grade, a school or college audition, a piece that has to be ready for a wedding on a fixed date, or the ten pieces by one composer you actually want to play. Rather than following a level, we start with that target and build the syllabus backwards from it, beginning with a planning class where you play for us and we agree on what finished looks like.

The material is yours, but the discipline is ours. Every plan separates technique, repertoire, reading and aural work, so a student preparing a grade does not spend five months only on their three pieces and then meet the scale requirements in the last fortnight. You get a dated syllabus, a written practice assignment each week, and a midway review where the plan can be revised honestly instead of quietly abandoned.

What you’ll be able to do

Perform the repertoire your plan was built around, from memory where the goal requires it.
Play the scales, arpeggios and technical requirements your grade specifies, at the tempos it specifies.
Sight read at the standard your goal demands, from unseen material each week.
Work to a written syllabus with dated milestones you can check off yourself.
Practise from a routine that separates technique, repertoire, reading and aural work.
Identify and fix your own technical faults: uneven fingers, wrist tension, blurred pedalling.
Record a clean take of a piece for an exam submission, an audition or a portfolio.
Play a full piece through in front of someone without stopping, including recovering from a slip.

Curriculum

What’s covered

The full syllabus for Piano Customized, in the order we teach it. Your teacher adjusts the pace to you, but nothing on this list gets skipped.

How we plan it

A first session where you play, and we agree on the target and the deadline
A written syllabus broken into weekly milestones
An honest assessment of what fits in the time available, and what does not
Choosing repertoire that suits your hand size, reach and current technique
Deciding the split between technique, repertoire, reading and aural work
A midway review where the plan is rewritten if the evidence says it should be

What we can cover

Graded exams — ABRSM, Trinity or Rockschool: set pieces, scales and arpeggios, sight reading and aural tests
Audition programmes and school or college music requirements
Classical repertoire chosen by period, from Bach inventions to Chopin preludes
Film, anime and game piano arrangements, played properly rather than approximated
Jazz and pop piano: voicings, comping, and playing from a lead sheet
Accompanying a singer or another instrumentalist, including transposition
Composing and notating your own pieces
Rebuilding technique after a long break from the instrument

How a class runs

One-to-one online, with a camera angle that shows the hands and the keys
Technical work with a metronome at the start of every class
Detailed work on the current milestone piece, hands separately where it helps
Sight reading from unseen material in most classes, not only before an exam
A written practice assignment at the end of each class, with the tempo for each item

How we measure progress

A tempo log for scales, arpeggios and technical studies
Recorded takes at intervals so progress is visible rather than remembered
Milestone check-ins against the written plan
Mock exams or mock auditions, run to time, before the real one
A closing performance or recording that completes the plan

Prerequisites

Before you start

Two things to check: where you are as a player, and what you need in the room.

Experience

A clear goal, and enough playing to make that goal reachable. As a floor, that is roughly the content of Piano Level 1: reading on the grand staff, playing with both hands together, and keeping steady time in 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4. Customized is not a beginner course — if you are starting from nothing, Piano Level 1 gets you further faster and you can move into Customized after it. Returning players who stopped years ago are a very good fit: bring whatever you can still play to the demo class.

Equipment

A keyboard or digital piano with touch-sensitive keys — 88 weighted keys if you are preparing a graded exam or an audition, since the instrument on the day will be a real piano — plus a sustain pedal, a stable internet connection and a webcam positioned so the teacher can see both your hands and the keys.

Pricing

What it costs

You buy class credits, not a subscription. Pick the bundle that suits you, book classes with your teacher, and use the credits within the validity period.

Starter

24 Classes

3-month plan · valid for 4 months

$39.50

per class

Total

$948

for all 24 classes, in USD

Frequently asked questions

Do you enter students for ABRSM or Trinity exams?

We prepare you for them in full — set pieces, scales and arpeggios, sight reading and aural — and we run mock exams to the real timing. Entry itself is made by you through the board or a local exam centre, because that registration has to be in the candidate's own name. We will tell you which grade you are ready for and when the entry deadlines fall.

I played as a child and stopped twenty years ago. Where do I fit?

Almost always here rather than in a level. Your reading and your ear usually come back much faster than your hands, which means a fixed level would bore you in one area and rush you in another. We start by finding out what has survived, then rebuild technique inside pieces you want to play again.

Do I really need 88 weighted keys?

For a graded exam or an audition, yes — you will be playing a real piano on the day, and weighted keys are what build the finger strength and dynamic control it demands. For pop, jazz or film repertoire played at home, a 61-key touch-sensitive instrument with a sustain pedal is workable, though you will eventually run out of keys at both ends.

Can the plan change after we have started?

Yes, and it often should. The midway review exists for exactly that. Students commonly discover a piece is a poor fit for their hands, or that they are ready for a higher grade than we first agreed. We rewrite the syllabus and the dates rather than pretending the original plan still holds.

More piano courses

Level 1
Piano Level 1
For complete beginners aged 6 and up. All you need is a keyboard to start.
Level 2
Piano Level 2
For students who read staff notation. Introduces the theory of harmony.
Level 3
Piano Level 3
For late-stage beginners: applying theory in practice and building real technique.

See all 8 courses →

🎁 Free · 30 minutes · 1-on-1

Try Piano Customized free for one class.

Meet the teacher, play something on day one, and get an honest recommendation on where to start. If it isn't a fit, you've lost nothing but half an hour.

Book a Free Demo All piano courses