Why I Created the Online Academy
Some of my happiest memories are associated with playing the piano. There have been times when I could imagine almost nothing I would rather be doing.
But, like many pianists, I encountered something that got in the way. In my case it was injury, and for the best part of ten years I barely played at all.
Losing something that had meant so much to me was difficult. The Online Academy grew, in part, from trying to find a positive response to that experience: a way of staying deeply connected with music and of making more of the teaching and guidance that had mattered to me available to others.
What I Didn’t Know I Didn’t Know
I loved playing when I was younger, but there were important gaps in my musical education that I didn’t recognise at the time. Despite those deficiencies, I was fortunate enough to go on to study piano performance at university.
Suddenly I had access not just to one teacher, but to a whole faculty of teachers and specialists, alongside classes, resources and other musicians. I encountered keyboard harmony, ear training and ensemble playing, as well as new approaches to technique and a much more thoughtful way of thinking about practising.
At the time, some of those things felt like extra work competing with repertoire and performance preparation. Looking back, they proved enormously valuable. They showed me that developing as a pianist involved much more than learning increasingly difficult pieces.
That broader education also included Graham Fitch’s practising classes and later the technical help he gave me. What struck me was his openness and how he drew on ideas from different teachers and traditions rather than trying to fit me into one fixed system.
I began to realise quite how much I hadn’t known that I didn’t know.
Unfortunately, some of that realisation came too late. I developed an injury that eventually made playing impossible and contributed to my leaving university.
For a while I taught, but quickly discovered that, although I have enormous respect for people for whom teaching is genuinely a calling, I wasn’t one of them. I then took a complete change of direction, moving into a technology start-up in the digital publishing field.
The Prodigal Pianist Returns
For almost ten years, I barely played. But the piano never really went away and I always assumed that somehow, at some point, I would find my way back.
Eventually I did.
The return was anything but straightforward. The physical problems hadn’t magically disappeared and some of the habits and limitations I had struggled with before were still there. It took years, fresh approaches and help from several people to find a way through them.
What struck me was how transformative the right insight could be. A specialist might see a problem from a completely different angle. Something I thought I already understood might finally be explained in a way that made sense physically or musically. And sometimes the breakthrough came from discovering that the problem I had been trying to solve wasn’t actually the problem at all.
Something that had caused years of frustration could begin to shift simply because somebody helped me see it differently.
Turning It Into Something Positive
My work with the Online Academy grew out of those experiences and out of a desire to find another positive way of engaging deeply with music.
When Graham and I began publishing together, I saw an opportunity to combine some of the skills I had developed in publishing and technology with something I cared about much more personally: making excellent teaching and specialist insight more widely available.
I knew from my own experience how much difference the right guidance could make when you were stuck.
I didn’t have the answers myself, but I recognised the questions. I’m certainly no expert, nor am I the world’s greatest pianist. I’m much closer to the amateur pianist on the receiving end of this knowledge, trying to understand it and work out how to put it into practice.
That has become an important part of my role. I ask questions from the learner’s perspective, volunteer myself as a willing guinea pig and work with teachers and specialists to help present their expertise in ways people can understand and use for themselves.
Why It Still Matters
Injury was one obstacle in my own story, but there are many others.
It might be not knowing how to practise, a technique that gets in the way of your musical intentions, areas of musicianship that were never fully developed, difficult experiences of performing, or simply knowing that something isn’t working without yet understanding what is missing.
Sometimes the most important discovery is simply that another idea or approach exists.
The Academy can’t solve everything and it can’t provide everything a pianist needs. But I know from my own experience how much difference the right idea or perspective at the right moment can make.
If the Academy can help more people find a way through some of the things that stand between them and the musical life they want and become a valuable part of that journey, that is what makes the work worthwhile.
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