Hi ABF community:

I haven't been around for a while because I've been giving my arm a break to heal from tendonitus, but I wanted to alert any beginners who live in the Bay Area of Northern California about a terrific way to jumpstart your reading and theory by taking a really good group class that meets once a week in the evening in Pleasant Hill. It is for advanced beginners and the teacher is excellent. I enrolled in the class, thinking it would be a great way to enforce discipline on my reading while getting experience playing with others, because it was so cheap and because I aleady had one of the books, ALFRED'S GROUP PIANO FOR ADULTS, 2nd edition. The rest of the books for the class cost only $15 more, bringing the cost of tuition and books to just $57 for four solid months of instruction. Unfortuntely after two more ultrasound treatments this week, my physical therapist still thought I shouldn't play in more than 15 min. increments.

The instructor is relatively new to the Bay Area, but was a professional cocktail pianst for many years and now performs as a freelance jazz musician herre. He has a Doctorate from Arizona State in Piano Performance and seems to have divided his formal studies and teachers training beween classical and jazz. I saw his resume and he also seems to have lots of experience teaching privtely and on the high school and college level.

I was able to attend the first night of class, so I can tell you I thought he was terrific, and some of you know how reluctant I am to give teachers any credit. He also seems to know a whole lot about injury prevention and tendonitus, so I actually talked to him about the possibity of taking private lessons with him--not because I think I got my tendonitus from bad playing but because once you've had it, it can so easily return if you are not ultra aware of everything your doing.

This Friday is the last day to add the class at DVC (diablo valley college). You can apply online in about 10 minutes and then register for the class and pay on line as well. This is the first class I took at the campus and it was really easy. But you can go to Registrar and have them do it for you or help you do it in their computer lab.

The DVC class number is Music-151
The section number is 8216
(for the teacher's email address, PM me)

I would not be able to take lessons for a few months, so I may actually be sabatoginng myself by advertising his virtues to those looking for a private teacher, but the course is in danger of being cancelled for underenrollment and I can't bear to see something so good go to waste.

I so wish I was NOT in the UK Starr Keys, that sounds fantastic, in fact it sounds better than fantastic.
I know you do not religeously advocate teachers willy nilly, so can appreciate this must be very very very good indeed.
I wish you a really good time, and sincerly hope that tendonitus gets better soon, you deserve it and have suffered enough.
Ps. Mrs R has just come down with tennis elbow, she has never played tennis, nor the piano, nor anything that would use the elbow more than just being alive.

I don't think you'll be wishing that for long, Rossy, or if you do, you better not make it too long because the states will be bankrupt by then. They just slashed 40% of the courses at state colleges, this one included, and if the classes aren't almost completely enrolled, they drop them and send the students home even after two meetings. I was really excited when I saw several jazz and improvisation classes in the catelog, but the two jazz performance classes given this semester got under 10 people for a 26 capacity course--as if there were more than a handful or so of students on a suburban community college campus prepared to approach modal improvisation with Abersold leadsheets on the first day of class. Jazz is always the first thing cut even though its our only real original contribution to the arts.

This one has at least 20 out of 26 and for some reason no one understood, there were only 21 pianos in the room, so maybe with just one more student enrollment, it could fly...or maybe they changed the room



Thank you heartily for your kind thoughts. I know I would have had a good time if I could have stayed in the class, but unfortunately I had to drop it. But I appreciate your sympathetic good wishes.




Please giver her my condolences. I got mine from typing and computing at a stressful job for years--I know this because I experence the same thing I do now and also carpal tunnal for the first time and again during decades when I never touched a piano.

Just in case anyone is interested in the class or hadn't logged in the last two days, I thought I better provide the teacher's email just for the day, since this is the last day to add the class and you might need his signature to do it--I'm sure he'd be happy to provide it and I'm pretty sure it can be all done via the computer.

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If I didn't live 6000 miles away from Pleasant Hill I'd be really interested. I once spent a few evenings in the Mr Pickwick Pub there, is it still around?

That sounds like a lot of fun Starr. I wish there was something like that around here.

Wasn't that place fantastic! My husband's in-laws family owned it. Broke our hearts when they sold it to some kitschy restaurant chain.

Small world, eh?



I lived here for over ten years and never knew it was there and so cheap and accessible to anyone. Lots of musicians in L.V. Have you checked out the nearest community college?

Well the truth is I really haven't looked much yet and I guess I was just assuming.

But I believe I located a private teacher that seems to be a good fit from looking at his profile online. So I may start doing lesson with him, and as I get a bit better maybe he can suggest group activities. That's my goal, to play with others, band or otherwise.

I watched some of your videos and you are good, very musical in your playing.

Hi Soupcat,

Thank you for listening and for your kind words about my playing.



Congratulations! Sounds like a good plan. I never had too much luck with private teachers--never really made any headway until I started teaching myself – although, I had some great help from an excellent online group teacher’s method. But I know a lot of people here who’ve had very good luck with their private lessons. Keep us posted on how yours turn out.

Oh, BTW, I’m a big soupcat myself. Slurp up the stuff by the gallons.:)