How long does it take?

This is something that varies from person to person. The approach develops gradually, and it’s based on spending time with simple material and allowing it to become clear and reliable. For most people, it unfolds over a period of years rather than weeks or months. What matters most is how you practise. Working with focus, and giving yourself enough time to stay with each step, tends to make the biggest difference — much more than rushing ahead or trying to cover a lot quickly. Progress is not about speed, but about building something that feels stable and usable.

Does it really work?

Yes — but not in the sense of a quick fix — it builds the underlying skills that make playing feel clear and connected. When those are in place, everything else becomes much easier. So it does depend on how you work with it. Simply going through the material isn’t enough — the real change comes from spending time with it, developing your focus and seeking the freedom and connection to the musical shapes as they unfold in the matrix. Impatience and desire for results actually cause blockage. It works best by allowing simple things to become meaningful and internalised.

Can I play my favourite songs and tunes on this course?

Of course you are free to play other music outside the course but the focus here is on developing the underlying skills that make music understandable and playable. This means spending time improvising and playing patterns and studies using the building blocks of music. Learning pieces that use more complex language won't improve fluency. Once your understanding develops so that you have real skills at all 15 steps, you will be able to take on any piece of music you woud like to study with real clarity and confidence.

I’ve not studied music before. Is this suitable for a complete beginner?

Yes. The material begins very simply and doesn’t assume any prior knowledge. In some ways, starting from the beginning can make things easier, because you don’t have to unlearn habits from other approaches. Everything is introduced gradually, and you can move at a pace that allows you to build confidence and understanding as you go.

I already have musical experience. Do I still need to start at the beginning?

The approach used here is quite different from conventional training, and it helps to begin with the early material so that the foundations are clear. If you have experience, you may find that you move through the initial stages more quickly. But starting at the beginning ensures that everything connects properly, and that the skills you build are stable and reliable.

I’m a teacher and find traditional aural and practical training doesn’t work well. Can I use your materials to learn how to teach this way?

The materials are designed primarily for developing your own musicianship through direct experience. To teach this approach effectively, it’s important to go through the process yourself —  working with the material, developing the feel of it, and understanding how the elements connect in practice. Many of the key aspects of the work don’t come across fully from reading alone. They become clear through doing. However, if you engage with the material in that way, it can certainly begin to inform and influence how you teach.

Will I learn music theory on this course?

Not in a conventional sense. The focus here is on developing practical understanding through playing, listening, and working with simple musical structures. As that develops, many aspects of music theory begin to make sense much more easily, because they are connected to something concrete that you can already hear and feel.  So rather than learning theory first and trying to apply it, you build the experience that theory is describing. Once you have skills at all 15 steps, learning music theory will most likely be much easier and more enjoyable.

Does this course cover scales and chords?

Not in the usual way. Instead of playing scales and chords as rehearsed exercises which become automatic, or as theoretical elements that you work out, you work with tonal blocks — clear, practical configurations within the keyboard that help you understand how sounds relate. These actually correspond to scales and chords, but the emphasis is different. Rather than memorising set scales and chords, you develop a clear conscious sense of where you are in the keyboard map, and connect to the tonal blocks as familiar places within it, giving you the much more technical and musical facility than learning scales and chords by rote playing or theoretical working out.

Do we practise drills and exercises?

Not in the usual way. Playing patterns with fluent understanding is different from practising finger drills and scales and exercises, repeating them until you can play them using muscle memory. Instead we use more musical patterns to develop a fluent grasp of rhythic and tonal structure and meaning.

Is this an ear training system?

It is not a musical ear training system in any conventional sense. In fact, I believe that you already have a perfectly functioning inner musician, which is why music makes sense to you as a listener. With practice, the structures of the music will become meaningful to you, unlocking your natural musical ear.

Is this course more for classical, jazz or pop music?

This is an entirely “non-denominational” approach that will prepare you for playing any style of music on the piano and develop keyboard skills for production, composing and arranging music. This is because once you have the foundation of musical fluency, you have the ability to understand how any music is constructed.

Is it OK to use this course alongside other approaches?

Mixing different learning approaches — even ones that aim towards the same goals — can lead to problems. Aural, keyboard musicianship, theory and sight-reading training are usually very different from PlayPianoFluently in their approaches and can conflict. Musical fluency is very like fluency in a language. This system is less about reciting passages of words from memory, or learning lots of complex grammar, it is more like learning a language by inhabiting the culture where it is spoken. So a certain level of immersion will help the learning take root.

Can I keep playing my old pieces?

Yes. But you simply see them as being outside this training until you have skills at all 15 steps, at which point you might enjoy reworking your old pieces with your fluent understanding.

Why is there no free sample?

There are quite a lot of free examples available already, including the material on this site and the videos on YouTube. Because the work develops gradually, through focused practice, it can be difficult to represent fully in a very short sample. For most people, the clearest way to understand whether it’s right for them is to get a general sense of the approach — and then experience it through working with the material over time. If you’re unsure, you’re always welcome to get in touch and ask questions.

I don’t have a good musical ear. Will this work for me?

In most cases, what people describe as a “poor ear” is simply a lack of connection between what they hear and what they play. If music already makes sense to you — if you can follow it, recognise it, or imagine it —
then your basic musical understanding is already there. This approach helps bring that understanding into your playing more directly. As that connection develops, listening tends to become clearer and more reliable,
without needing to train it in isolation.

Is this suitable for children?

The materials are designed with adults in mind. The ideas themselves are quite simple, but they are introduced in a way that assumes a certain level of focus and independence. With the right kind of guidance, children can certainly engage with these concepts. This works best when they are supported by someone who understands the approach and can present it in a creative and engaging way. Perhaps you might share your learning with your own children... Developing dedicated materials for children is something I may explore in the future.

You say each step requires hundreds of hours of practice. Without hundreds of hours of video lessons, how does that work?

Rather than being shown lots of examples to follow, in the videos you get, you’re given simple structures and clear guidance on how to work with them yourself in various permutations. The actual learning happens through what you do with the material creatively. Because the patterns are simple, they can be explored in many different ways — and this repetition, combined with focused attention, is what allows them to become clear and usable. So instead of moving through large amounts of fixed content to be rehearsed, you spend more time with smaller amounts of material, then play with it in all kinds of different ways, allowing it to develop depth.

If it’s not what I expected, can I get a refund?

Before purchasing, it’s a good idea to explore the material on the site and the videos, to get a clear sense of whether this approach feels right for you. It is quite different from a conventional course, and it won’t suit everyone. If you do decide to purchase and feel it’s not a good fit, you’re welcome to get in touch within 14 days. As long as the materials are deleted after download, a refund can be arranged.