Piano Lessons in Chicago, supercharged.

The world needs artists, not robots.

I quit piano lessons in 9th grade. I hated practicing and I didn’t feel like I was good at piano. When I became a teacher I tried to prevent my students from feeling the same sort of frustration but I started to see the cycle repeat.

I noticed that they waited for me to tell them what to do. Students waited for me to tell them when to sit, when to open their book, when to turn the page, when to start, when to stop. It was boring and inefficient. No wonder practice at home felt awful. They couldn’t actually play on their own.

I believed in the potential of my students, so this confused me. They are capable! Smart! Creative! Why are they bored when they could be playing their favorite songs?

Learned helplessness. When piano teachers don’t allow students to make choices, struggle, or set goals, students never believe they can do those things.

This is unacceptable (and probably why 80% of piano students quit).

So we got to work building a piano program that answered this question: How can we help students take ownership so they actually enjoy the piano learning process?

The results were fascinating. Not only can students learn in our self-led format… they make more progress with less stress. Why? Because they prove to themselves that they have the tools to reach their goals. That’s the definition of confidence :)

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for his lifetime. We can’t do the learning for our kids, but we can give them the tools and environment where they can learn for themselves.

At the end of the day, students who can learn for themselves are the ones who will take music into their lives forever. They’re also the ones most likely to change the world.

I can’t wait to show you how.

Molly Lehr, Founder