Foundations of Piano
A Welcoming 10-Week Course for High School and Adult Learners
Program Overview
Foundations of Piano: A Welcoming 10-Week Course for High School and Adult Learners Whether you are sitting at the piano for the first time or returning after years away, this 10-week online course helps you build confidence from the very beginning. Each weekly lesson combines clear instruction, practical keyboard work, and achievable practice goals so students can steadily develop the skills needed to read, understand, and enjoy music. Students will learn healthy posture and hand position, strengthen note-reading fluency, and gain a practical understanding of rhythm, note values, and common time signatures.
As the course progresses, learners will explore major and minor scales, basic chord patterns, and two-hand coordination through accessible repertoire drawn from a variety of musical and cultural traditions.
Beginners will be guided step by step, while returning students will have space to refresh technique, fill in foundational gaps, and reconnect with the instrument. Weekly assignments and periodic progress checks help students stay motivated, track growth, and bring new confidence to each lesson. Offered through the conservatory’s international online program, this course is open to motivated learners in all time zones. Students should have access to a piano or 88-key weighted keyboard and plan to practice for 15–20 minutes on most days to get the most from the experience.
- Duration: 10-week semester
- Total Class Time: One live online lesson per week, plus guided practice assignments.
- Study Mode: Weekly instruction with consistent independent practice between lessons.
- Location: Online
- Teaching Language: English
Instructor
Penny Lazarus
Penny Lazarus, a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music, is an American pianist and educator based in Massachusetts, who leads an active, community-centered, project-based piano studio and teaches piano from a worldwide cultural perspective, bringing intercultural awareness into her instruction from a student’s very first lesson.
For me, music is life itself, with all its sorrows and its joys, its harmonies and its conflicts, translated into sound. Nothing more, and nothing less. Or perhaps something more: a bridge to the divine, to the unseen and the transcendent; the one thing that may outlive us, the final trace of what we have been.
Ready to pursue your dream?
The interplay between the best of Eastern and Western traditions starts here.