Essential Piano Techniques and Exercises That Any Piano Player Should Have

***Check prerequisites below
_________________________
This class will cover and discuss some of the most essential Piano techniques, methods, and exercises that anyone who plays piano, of any level (beginner, intermediate, or advanced) will need for the rest of their lives. The content of this course is directly related to anything you might be working on with piano right now and in the future, so it should be seen as a parallel to wherever you are on your pianistic journey. In the same way, you will get to participate in creative activities with the rest of the class that will make all of this more human, comprehensive, and aware.

This class will provide tools and practices that will significantly enhance:
-Your piano performance skills
-Your efficiency on the piano
-Your approach to music theory
-Your physical health when playing piano
-Your musicianship
-Your analytical skills for all of the above, as well as further defining your identity as a musician
-Your practicing habits

If you have been taking piano lessons for some time and all you do is sight-read and perform songs/pieces, this course will make you a better musician in every sense! If you are just starting to play the piano, this class is going to make you become a very complete musician in many essential aspects before you even know it! (perhaps, literally). You will get to be included in a small community of people that are on the same journey as you, and interact with them about it.

---CLASS FORMAT---
-For every unit, I will be introducing a concept from the bottom up, by understanding its meaning in music theory, how it works, and thoroughly explaining how to execute it on the piano.
-Every week, I will provide 2-3 discussion questions related to the content that you will have to answer from your own experience, as well as interactive assignments among students.
-Either at the same time or right after, I will assign the weekly homework that the student should work on their own (whether it's practicing, written assignments, discussions, or questionnaires for later). 
-Many of the homeworks will require the student to record themselves playing the assigned exercise, so expect some of that. You will upload the file to either the Outschool classroom or your preferred cloud platform. 
-By the next class, we will discuss (asynchronously) how the week went and our personal observations about the content. 
-Outside of the class, students may ask me or others ANY questions related to the content, at ANY time, and I will personally answer questions to the best of my extent, within 24 hours

---PREREQUISITES / REQUIREMENTS---
1) Knowledge: knowing how notes, fingerings, written music, and basic rhythm on the piano works.
2) Access to a Piano/Keyboard: *recommended: a piano or keyboard with fully weighted keys (i.e. Yamaha P-115)
3) Access to a metronome (App): we will constantly play with a metronome. If you don’t own a physical metronome, you can always download a free app on your phone/tablet. I personally like “Pro Metronome” by EUMLab 
4) A device that can record video, and reliable ways to post the video in the classroom or upload the video's file to a cloud platform. If you have any objections or impediments to video record, let me know and we can work out a possible solution.
5) If you're unable to post a video in the classroom, have a Google account with Google Drive/Google Photos, or equivalent "shareable" AND playable cloud platform (i.e.Dropbox, OneDrive, etc) to upload the videos to. *Most of these keep email addresses and account names private.
6) Willingness to have fun! Though the class content can sometimes be very discipline-based, it’s actually much more fun than you may think!