Alan Cross Music Lessons

Alan works to make a tailor made plan for each student. He works for find what musical styles each students is interested in and finds a good level for them to start at. Some go classical and others more into the creative or contemporary styles. Every style of music can be a creative art and for those who want to develop that side, Alan works to create a creative ability in his students.

Alan is trained in classical and jazz. He has studied piano for twenty five years and has taught for eleven. Alan also leads worship at his church in Santa Clara and has worked as a music director for youth and adults.

$37 for half hour, $55 for fourty five minutes, $72 for hour. 

Alan was encouraged to teach by other teachers. His collegiate classical teacher had a trouble student that she thought he would do well with and she asked if he would teach him. Another teacher encouraged him to teach after graduating and he assumed a few students. Alan worked as a music director and taught individual piano lessons before moving to the bay area and starting here.

Alan has worked with all ages. The retired, the young, teens, those in their twenties, working adults, even a father or mother learning along side their children. Alan tends to use piano curriculum and then feeds his students into classical, and jazz if they are interested. Alan has studied improvisation and encourages it in any style, not just jazz and blues. Alan likes to write and create in the New Age style, which is a lyrical style influenced by classical but a bit more accessible to some. Some of the greates of that styles are Phillip Aaberg and George Winston. Some today have liked Yiruma or Hisaishi. In any style you can create and Alan encourages that. At the same time the greats have written down their music and it is great to play it with feeling, emotion, and intelligence. This also is stressed. Alan is also good at working with those who normally don't like getting into music or the regimental lines of it and tries to help those still interested find what they like the most and the joy of hard work.

One of Alan's recent students actually listed Alan as their hero and spoke about him at a public event! Alan tries his best to be clear, concise, and helpful. He tries to explain the basics of music in a way that can be understood and tries to demonstrate and convey musicality.

There are a lot of teachers out there and each has their own take on music and their own philosophy and ideas. Alan starts at a steady even pace and slowly builds up the practice time. Some parents encourage their students to practice many hours a day but without much more thought than that they want them to be very great! This may make fingers that can move fast and hit the right notes, and certainly greats like Beethoven were like this, but even teachers know that forcing music on people creates talented people who often aren't very happy. For this reason, Alan does encourage practicing and as the student progresses, more practice time is needed. A beginner may need 15 to 30 minutes a day, Where a more advanced student two hours or more, but in each case, the student should be working to do their best and should enjoy what they are doing. Alan has worked at piano as much as five hours a day, and finds that they joy of music doesn't die when you are working at what you should.

What kind of music do you like? Do you want to be creative or create music? Do you thrive on preset standards and expectations? Do you learn by demonstration? Any well meanored person with good talent and a good heart can convey what they know and that is mostly what you need. Much is learned by listening too. So make sure you develop your love of music by listening and find music to play in that vein.