Unleash Your Creativity
Explore the Joy of Playing Piano
The central ambition at PianEasy is to make learning and exploring the piano fun and accessible for anyone, whether brand new beginner, intrepid returner, or someone wanting to take it to the next level. Whether at home or on a PianEasy Immersive Retreat, through the demonstration and sharing of simple practices & strategies, PianEasy invites you to explore both your innate musicality, and your inherent motor-neurone capacities.
Welcome
"Most of what I can do now as a pianist comes from time spent as an adult."
Welcome to a new piano teaching enterprise PianEasy where the chief goal is to create an environment online and on immersive retreat where a set of tools is put at your disposal that make learning the piano an experience, a discovery, and in the end simply a skill that you really can actually acquire. Whether you’ve never touched a piano, once played and wish to return, or are always looking to improve and explore, this is being created with all pianophiles in mind, but especially those many people who regret giving up as a child, or never having started at all, and who suspect it’s too late now, because it really isn’t.
The Immersive Retreats and the PianEasy Online Tutorial Library (originally conceived to support students once they return home) offer in-person residential immersion and guided online resources, everything you need to play, understand, and enjoy the piano — at your own pace at home with online support, or if ready for where the progress curve truly achieves escape velocity: total immersion in the company of the like-minded on immersive retreat in the foothills of the Pyrenees.
For those who can’t find the time or means for a short spell of full immersion, there’s the “Atomic” 30-60 minutes a day from home approach, or every other day, as life permits – 2 or 3 times per week as base minimum, 60 minutes per day optimal.
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Two Paths to Progress
1. The Immersive Experience...(Intensive Residential)
The Immersive Retreats aim to curate a space which encourages focus and flow – an environment in which to immerse in learning and to nurture the dormant innate musicality and motor-neurone capabilities that we all enjoy, and which can be easily awoken with regular training. Engage in some serious bit-between-teeth skill-building, accompanied & encouraged by others of like mind engaged similarly beside you.
The retreats are for now based near where I live with my wife and 3 boys, in the Occitanie Region of southern France – Mirepoix, the Ariege – a medieval market town with the Pyrenees as backdrop, and which has a 15th century central “place” (town-square) offering a selection of cafes, bars, shops and restaurants. This will be an intensive but balanced learning experience, with the day shared strategically between practice, workshops, theory, discussion and relaxation/rejuvenation. At the heart of the experience lies the question how best organise/manage our time/selves so as to maximise attention and concentration, and by so doing optimise for the thrill of progress.
A typical day will include:
Individual lesson time, guided practice and solo practice.
Group seminars, workshops and “Scales & Chords” Theory sessions.
Rejuvenation sessions (yoga, meditation, walks, siestas, saunas, river swims, coffee etc.)
The experience ends with an opportunity to take what you’ve learned to a Steinway grand piano.
For more detail on the retreats click here.
2. The Atomic Experience...(online resources from home)
The “Atomic” programme is what has become the “30/60 minutes a day from home” branch of the principal residential immersive trunk. This “Atomic” approach is inspired primarily by the progress I have seen in my own playing and retention at this frequency over the last few years, and which is currently being demonstrating with Project Rachoven, a series I’m releasing on Substack under the banner “The Accidental Pianist” looking at what’s achievable from a 30 minute session per day with regard retention and fluidity of recall. The title “Atomic” is inspired by James Clear’s Bestselling self-help book “Atomic Habits” which in part explores this phenomena of cumulative incremental gains that become inevitable over the long-run with just a simple small (atomic) but crucially regular habit, ideally daily – ideally hourly but being realistic.
The many profound cumulative gains an “Atomic” approach offers to one side, immersion represents I think the uncontroversial gold-standard when it comes to rocket-fuelled progress with any skill. It’s how we all learned our mother tongues, and is the ideal when it comes to the environment I personally crave most for knuckling down to learn anything. In reality though this uber-effective “mother-tongue” or “dusk-til-dawn” approach usually slams headfirst into the reality of our finite existence and the ensuing to do lists, and this is where a fallback approach is required and 30 minutes a day spent efficiently turns out to be astonishingly effective and sufficient for profound cumulative progress over time, and in the end this does represent what most of us can realistically achieve much of the time – it is all I am managing to squeeze in currently – and it is what retreat members keen to build on their momentum are urged to fall back to when they get home to their busy lives. Until the following retreat that is!
The online library was originally devised for access on and post retreat as a set of tools and clear & concise teaching materials that offer pause and repeat functionality and which never leave one in doubt as to which note is next, nor with which finger to strike it, nor of which chord it is a part, so section by section off you go. The library contains:
FollowAlong Videos: Watch and be guided through pieces step by step, segment by segment, section by section.
PlayAlong Tracks: Practice with accompaniment at your own pace.
Theory & Discussion: Short and digestible lessons with emphasis on Chords & Scales, to deepen your understanding and super-charge your progress.
Everything is designed to support you in building confidence & skill, and to guide you through some inevitable frustration to much inevitable joy — and all at a pace that suits.
For now in the Tutorials Section (accessed via “Hub” in the menu) there is a taster/tester page of what’s coming regarding the walkthrough tutorials, which contains for now a walkthrough explanation for the ever-so-simple opening of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.21 Slow Movement for anyone to have a go at. Included is the Section 1 Orchestral PlayAlong Track to practice against with options for hands separately and then together, so once you’ve got the hang of it you can turn off the lights and imagine you’re in the Albert Hall with the Philharmonia. Have a go here.
About James
On Substack as The Accidental Pianist
Hi, I’m an award-winning film composer and excitable amateur pianist. I have a Masters in Music for the Screen (NFTS & Royal College of Art) and a BMus from the University of London, and I’ve composed for projects including Merlin (BBC) and Lego Nexo Knights, and earned a Golden Skull award for my debut film score, The Hallow.
Though I started late and have never played as my main profession, never-the-less my own personal piano journey has brought me to a place that if I’d known was possible aged 16, I may well have ploughed more time into it earlier, because I discovered practice strategies that have proved astonishingly effective, and that once I discovered them in my twenties, they began to unlock progress and possibilities that continue to astound me to this day – a kind of real life magic. It is this experience which has inspired PianEasy, where I’m going to be sharing these methods with anyone interested in learning them.
For more on James’ story and to watch/listen to some of his tinkled ivories click here
Join & Stay Connected
Whether online or onretreat, you are hereby cordially invited to step into your musical journey and sign up free to the accompanying Accidental Pianist Newsletter
Mailing List: Get retreat dates, free videos, early access and posts exploring the subject of learning the piano and what it can teach us about the practice of learning in general, and how we can apply that to darts, the violin, Portuguese and more.
Start Online: Begin your first lessons today with free access to Beginner Series #1.
Contact James: Questions, partnerships, or curiosity welcome.