Steve Pitkanen
BFA (Music), MMus (Performance)
Hello! My name is Steve. I have been a working musician for the past 35 years, both as a performer and educator.
My performing experience ranges from high school rock bands to playing in hotel lounges and piano bars to a 15-year career opera career, singing with professional orchestras.
As a music educator, I have taught private piano/voice lessons for 20 years, group keyboard lessons for 7 years, and even lectured at university.
But, honestly, I didn’t start out wanting to do any of those things. I just wanted to learn how to sing and play my favorite songs on the piano. The problem was that piano lessons were boring and I never got to play the songs I wanted to play.
So, inspired by chord-playing on the guitar, I taught myself a new chord-based style of piano playing, only to discover later that every modern recording artist was playing precisely the same way! So, why wasn’t anyone teaching this?
I have spent the past 8 months rethinking and redesigning the way keyboard lessons should be taught, based on the breadth of my 33 years experience as a teacher and performer of both Popular and Classical music. This is how I always wanted to be taught; hopefully it is the same for you.
But, honestly, I didn’t start out wanting to do any of those things. I just wanted to learn how to sing and play my favorite songs on the piano. The problem was that piano lessons were boring and I never got to play the songs I wanted to play.
So, inspired by chord-playing on the guitar, I taught myself a new chord-based style of piano playing, only to discover later that every modern recording artist was playing precisely the same way! So, why wasn’t anyone teaching this?
I have spent the past 8 months rethinking and redesigning the way keyboard lessons should be taught, based on the breadth of my 33 years experience as a teacher and performer of both Popular and Classical music. This is how I always wanted to be taught; hopefully it is the same for you.
