In the spring of 2012, I hit a plateau in my nonprofit career. The next step was an executive role with eighty-hour weeks. Around the same time, I had started practicing piano on my lunch breaks at the music store across the street, and building a small studio website after work. I had a Bachelor’s and a Master’s in Piano Performance and had been teaching since I was sixteen, but the imposter syndrome was real.
It had been three years since my last private lesson. My lunch-break practice had become the highlight of the workday, but I felt lost. Without structure or a teacher, I was struggling to find focus and direction. I realized I wanted accountability, and to return to studying music full-time. In May, I quit the job to prepare for Doctor of Musical Arts auditions. I took on three part-time jobs to cover rent, found a teacher at a community music school whose credentials resonated with me, practiced on a keyboard at home, and rode the bus across town to rent time on an upright.
While I had my work cut out for me, what saved me were the hours I’d spent as a child practicing technique and studying theory. Despite the long break, I was able to bounce back because I had that foundation. It came through in my auditions and made me stand out to the teachers I played for. That foundation saved my musical career.
I’m sharing this not to encourage anyone to quit their job for music, although I have coached several students through exactly that change. Most people coming to the studio are taking their first concrete steps after years of trying to teach themselves, or are returning after a long pause. The feeling they describe is the one I had on those lunch breaks in San Francisco: a desire to be better, a sense of overwhelm, and the hope that a teacher with a plan could put them on a path toward their goals.
Whether you’re beginning from scratch or already playing advanced repertoire, a foundation in technique and theory addresses the gaps that hold you back and builds real confidence at the keyboard. That’s why Musical Foundations is built into every semester: dedicated weeks of theory and technique inside the term, with unlimited access to keep progressing on it whenever you want.
Repertoire is what draws us to the piano, but the foundation underneath is what lets us keep growing as pianists, and as lifelong students of the music we love. It’s what saved me as a musician, and it’s what I want every student here to build for themselves.
Whether you’re continuing your lessons or returning after time away, this summer term is a chance to set down a plan and specific goals to work toward. Your studio peers and I look forward to being part of it.
