Stephen Caswell's Music Practice

As well as helping students to acquire the manual dexterity and knowledge of music theory that will allow them to play piano and keyboard instruments, piano tuition at Stephen Caswell's Music Practice is designed to inspire a love and appreciation of music. Students are encouraged to listen with a musical ear and apply their developing knowledge to the pieces they work on.

Paradoxically, discovering what makes styles of music different can help to reinforce understanding of the fundamentals, so any one lesson might be centred around the playing of a classical, jazz or popular rock composition. It all adds to the range of musical skills acquired through the tuition and is key to ensuring students of all ages and musical persuasions enjoy their learning.

Very young pupils - perhaps, depending on temperament and character, as young as four years old - can be taught piano using a method known as 'Dogs and Birds', which uses animals to symbolise musical notes. For example, a picture of a dog means 'play a D', a bird means B and a cat means C.

With older children and young adults we follow much of the course set out in Alan Haughton's book 'Play Teenage Piano', bringing that together with elements drawn from 'Up-grade!', the excellent series of books by Pam Wedgwood. Pam's books 'It's Never Too Late to Play Piano' and 'It's Never Too Late to Play Classics' are well-suited to adult learners and we usually make use of them.

A tailored programme to help every student enjoy their learning and become proficient players of this wonderful instrument.

It is often said of experts in a particular field that 'they wrote the book' on their subject, but for Stephen Caswell the statement is quite literally true. As the author of 'The Elephant Goes Home', a book familiar to many who learned to play guitar when young, Mr Caswell is widely recognised as a truly outstanding teacher of classical guitar.

Naturally, the well-proven methods that are the basis of his book also form the foundation of his own tuition. Children as young as five have been able to begin learning their instrument this way, but adaptations of the same techniques have been used to help a great many older students learn to play guitar too.