I had been taking lessons with an extremely skilled pianist and teacher, but unfortunately, working full time, I do not have the time to invest to justify the price of $45 lessons every other week.

Searching on the web, I came across Piano Career Academy. The woman has done numerous youtube videos, and this new site is the newest iteration of lessons.

Link here->http://www.pianocareeracademy.com/

Quite unique...

"The only holistic piano community and coaching program on the internet. Discover the secrets of the Russian piano school. Online piano lessons available."

What caught my eye with this was the quality of the main instructor, or owner of the site, LLinca Vartic, Youtube video tutorials.

Price of monthly access? $45 last time I checked.

Anybody have any experience with these online lesson type of places, or is it not worth the money?

I would consider myself able to practice and teach myself, just in need of that little bit extra guidance/teaching

I didn't have time to listen to the whole presentation, and there was no way to fast forward. Does she ever show anything in that demo? Does she ever elucidate beyond vague terms what she is offering? You may want to ask in the ABF if anyone has tried this.

Yeah...Wasn't sure which forum to put this in...feel free to move it.

And no, there is no elaboration on exactly what the holistic method is based on, other than the Russian piano school.

If you check out some of her youtube videos from the past...the tutorials she gives are fairly good.

By reading her blog and watching video tutorials on pedaling techniques, I improved my performance of a piece drastically, cause she covered things that my $45 piano teacher never really got around too.

Site disclaimer I found:
"PianoCareerAcademy.com is not a step-by-step piano playing course. The intent of the author is only to offer information (via a private forum) of general nature to help you in your quest for a fulfilled musical career, a more productive and meaningful piano practice and a better understanding of the pianistic interpretative principles."

So...like a paid version of Piano World...or perhaps something more personal and direct in the form of lessons and more actual instructor interaction.

Joe, I haven't looked at her website, nor do I plan to. It's too time consuming. But consider, what does she mean by monthly access? Is this just to look at past videos? Surely she doesn't mean 4 hours of instruction at $10/hr.

More likely, you're looking for a teacher who will Skype with you and give one on one lessons via the Internet. I recall that several teachers here do it, but not as their main bread and butter. I don't know their rates, but I'm willing to guess they're not giving away their services.

Actually, considering the very low fee for instruction, it's amazing you got anything of value from these lessons.

They could have been for 30 minute lessons. Many teachers in my area with an MA charge $45-50 for the half-hour.

I haven't looked at the site either, Joe, but it seems to me as though you'd get more from going to monthly lessons ($45 being the same price as the site) and posting recordings of yourself on YT/somewhere for others to critique you where they can.

Advice to any adult taking 30 minute lessons. Stop immediately and move to an hour. A 30 min lesson is 25 min at best. You're barely starting and it's time to wrap up. My 50 min students are always surprised when I stop the lesson and tell them I'll see them next week. Even my 90 min students find themselves so involved, that they are not aware of the passage of time.

KV, I cannot imagine that low of a rate in Santa Barbara. Do these teachers even play the piano? What are their credentials? Sounds more like day care rates (we have relatives who teach in SB and know they do not suffer such abysmal rates).

$45-$50 per half hour in Santa Barbara sounds about right to me. That's what teachers are charging per hour in the central valley of CA, so that's double for SB.

John, I completely agree. 30 minutes just doesn't cut it, really. I'll have private lessons at my university starting this week but we're only given 30 minutes. I don't know how much we'll manage in that time... An hour seems too short sometimes too!

I should have clarified by the way: the rates I mentioned earlier were in Orange County of CA, where the average hour lesson is about $50. Now I'm afraid to find additional private lessons here in SB!!

I have FMS, and I never know when I will have a rough day where I can't practice so my teacher and I worked out that a one hour lesson every other week would be better than a weekly one -- and it's working out fine. I'm in the Tampa Bay area and my teacher gets $25.00 a half hour, so I pay $50.00 every other week.

It's interesting to see what lessons cost in different areas of the country.

@kayvee - My son's music lessons in college were part of the music program so 30 minutes was not billed to him but to the university program. The music teacher offered to have him pay $30 more for the full hour. It worked out well because as you said, 30 minutes is not enough at that level.

I was able to see a few of her videos. She teaches the things a good teacher teaches, but I wonder if they can come across in a video. I saw something that I'm working on right now. Her demonstration lasts maybe 10 or 20 seconds in the middle of a lot of talk. I wonder whether the demonstrated thing might not need to be broken down and taught in stages. And also whether this can be done by video, or whether it wouldn't be better to work directly with a teacher and get feedback. The elephant in the room is that so often students who do engage a teacher end not being taught what they need, and so we look for other resources.

The words "holistic" etc. is just a euphemism for what music study should be about. But how often is it?

Addendum: The other video I watched seemed thorough.

Yes, I will speak to the teacher about that; however, I know a lot of teachers require students to sign up for an extra unit to get that other half hour, but they'll end up paying for it.

On the plus side, it's more worth it than a website of videos you can probably find elsewhere:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Lypur

(Not that I necessarily endorse this and think the website the OP posted isn't good, but it makes you wonder why there is a need to pay for something that you can readily find all over the internet if it isn't targeted to a specific goal or need.)

Joe, give it a try for a month. It's only an investment of $45, and your initial look at the site helped your playing. Good for Mme. Vartic. Clearly it's not a brand of Skype teaching, but more self-instruction.
Keep us posted.