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"Scott is among a
small fraction of musicians who have the uncanny ability to
communicate musical structure and content in a meaningful,
thoughtful way to an audience. As a producer and recording coach, he
has been sought out by the best-known artists precisely because of
his sensitivity and comprehension of the composer's intent; he is
noted for his ability to bring out the artist's best performances.
Scott is also a fine pianist and first-rate teacher."
Peter Brownlee
Piano Faculty, Central Oregon Community
College
"Scott
immediately put me at ease. At my very first lesson, he gave me a
piece to play that was at once challenging but also at a level that
I could enjoy. I can't say enough about his patient, caring
attitude. He has a true teacher's gift for inspiring you; he always
works with you from where you are, while encouraging you to progress
by giving you the tools you need to keep improving. I now play piano
daily, after a thirty year gap, thanks to his gentle guidance. I
recommend him without reservation, especially for anyone coming back
to the piano, as I was. His enthusiasm is contagious. And his
patience, unlike my own, always made me feel like there was
improvement as long as I was willing to practice what he was
teaching me."
Cathy Lind Hayes,
Actress
"It is
my pleasure to recommend Mr. Scott Johnson as an effective and
patient music teacher. Mr. Johnson became my daughter’s music
teacher two years ago. When I interviewed Mr. Johnson (Scott), I
gave him in depth background on my daughter’s disability,
Pervasive Developmental Delay (PDD) that is part of the Autistic
Spectrum. He cheerfully embraced the challenge of engaging my
daughter in piano educational instruction.
"My daughter was eight years old when she began working with
Scott learning at first the basic outline of the keyboard. Soon
she was able to grasp reading music and learning to understand
music theory. Finally, it was an incredible milestone to hear
her play the music she was reading at the same time.
"Scott’s perseverance and music ability has translated into her
playing songs and trying to sing along. I can’t thank Scott
enough for teaching her that through consistently applying
herself, the impossible is attainable.
"If you have any questions regarding my recommendation or would
like to more know more about my daughter's challenges and
success in music, please feel free to contact me at your
convenience."
Amy DeBlaise,
Parent
"I had the great pleasure of a first piano lesson with Scott Johnson
just less than a week ago, and I must say that never in my life have I
taken a lesson in an instrument besides my voice where the teacher has,
literally, changed my life inside an hour and a half.
" I was a young piano student from ages eight to twelve or so, banging
away on the family grand under the jaded (I would say, jaundiced) eye
of a string of terrifying teachers...pushed through the usual "level
one, level two and some basic Bartok, the experience of learning piano
then seemed like an endless chain of practice without reward and having
my petrified of math and sciences young female brain learn and unlearn
my sight reading, over and over…erasing that which was learned by rote
and teaching without reason other than that it was "the accepted
procedure". I was so resistant to the whole process, much as I loved
music even at that age, that I remember on one occasion I smashed my
head backwards through the pane glass window of our living room next to
the piano under the eye of my mother and piano "teacher", an "accident"
indeed.
"These feelings stayed with me until my early thirties, when I decided
to start doing for myself what I had wished to do all my life, namely,
learn to pay the piano not like a poke and peck adult constant beginner,
but well, maybe one day, beautifully even.
"I started with a teacher who was a recommendation from a friend, a
jolly fellow who did much to simplify and release my irrational fears of
the learning process, but still I was left somewhat unsatisfied, feeling
at the pace we took it would be years and years before I could begin to
play the music I dreamed of, Chopin and Beethoven and Ravel, and not in
the oversimplified, reading for Dummies version of the adult beginner
books, but as the masters dreamed them and wrote them. I left his
studio after a year and a half, feeling as if I had made small progress
but not much.
"This year, here I am a few years later, and bought a new piano so that
I could work on voice at home with my teacher and pianist, and I
thought, what the hell? Maybe now I actually might learn to play this
thing...and by whim I went searching on the internet for piano teachers
websites, setting on Scott's finally because he out of all of them
seemed to have some knowledge of an actual science of teaching, a real
pedagogy based in tried and found true methods, someone who might, just
might lead me away from point and peck.
"He arrived for our first lesson, and I must say I was a bit doubtful,
ready to be let down again and led down the boring path of treat the
adult beginner like a five year old who has twenty years to learn,
etcetera...but within a few minutes with Scott, I began to see a
different future forming before me
"
He pulled out a few texts that seemed slightly arcane and exotic and
from another era entirely, some written in French, and started showing
me the exercises for note learning contained therein.
"Within an hour I was playing with confidence all the notes on treble
and bass clef!! Suddenly everything was easy!
"I started to feel as if someone had come over and opened a door to
music that had been shut, and rusted, and covered in cobwebs all my
life, but nevertheless, there, waiting.
"I was afraid I was experiencing some kind of hallucinatory
manifestation of Scott's super teacher sleight of hand, afraid that
after he left that day I would go back to hunt and peck and my advances
would be as nothing, but the opposite occurred! In the days that
followed, this past week, I practiced every day and FOR THE FIRST TIME
IN MY LIFE! this process was FUN! and EASY! and I wanted to !! Now
playing the piano has become like a drug I can't get enough of! All due
to Scott! and his lineage of teachers- I have found that now sight
reading, and indeed, the freedom of my hands to move without my constant
willing and looking where they need go is happening like breathing,
coming faster and faster- and this after only a week! I can't wait to
see where I am after a year! I am sure that lessons with Mr. Johnson, to
those who have suffered through "normal" teachers, can be described as
nothing less than a revelatory, “paradise found” experience. With that
one lesson he has already brought so much joy and hope to my life!
"And funnily enough, after only a few days of practicing his techniques,
I opened the "adult beginner' classical themes book I was struggling
with three years ago, and found I COULD PLAY EVERY TUNE AS IF I HAD
OPENED A CHILDREN"S BOOK WHEN I WAS EXPECTING PROUST!
Christina Kew
Artist. Malibu , CA
More to come - under
construction
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