Scott The Piano Guy Houston

Houston is an experienced music professional with more than 20 years in the business. A trained percussionist, Houston studied jazz at the Indiana University School of Music. Houston then spent five years as president of a music publishing business, and played keyboards and percussion in rock, funk and jazz ensembles. He began exploring effective means to teach adult, non-musicians how to simply have fun playing piano in 1997.

In 2003, Houston began showing public television viewers how to "play piano in a flash" through his wildly successful pledge special of the same name.
Seen by millions of viewers nationwide since debuting in March 2003, Play Piano In A Flash has been a terrific fundraising vehicle for stations
carrying the program. Among the highest-grossing pledge specials in public television history, stations to date have raised more than $14 million.

The Piano Guy with Scott Houston weekly television series is now in its third year airing on public television stations. The series covers over 90% of the TV households in the country on a weekly basis. Shot in high definition, the show continues to delight, inform and entertain thousands of viewers nationwide. Brand new Season 7 episodes will be released in March of 2007. Currently sponsored by Pearl River, Roland, NAMM and Pianobench.com, The Piano Guy show has also been supported by Steinway, Yamaha, QRS, BOSE, and The American Music Conference in the recent past.

Scott Houston's method is not new...in fact, there's several online and offline sources that teach chordal piano, such as Robert McLaughlin, Hear and Play, Rocket Piano and others. They are just different.

Besides, learning piano is perpetual. Even after playing piano since 1974, I still learn new things every day. Just not as fast or as many as I did in 1974. (Age is a cruel companion!) The secret is you play piano -- not practice it.

I took formal, traditional, classical music lessons through junior high and high school. I took two semesters in college. I practiced about 15 minutes to one hour a day, depending upon the demand of the teacher. BUT...I played about 2 to 4 hours a day after that. I was playing pop, jazz, country, dixieland, stride, blues, broadway...the tunes I wanted to play, not my assignments. This is the secret to The Piano Guy's method. You will be learning the tunes you know and love already, just not as a pianist -- yet!

In my opinion, his method is good. It is primarily setup for people to be lifetime music makers, not lifetime students of a piano teacher.

If you're looking for a "coach" or "tutor" to help you through the course work, that's okay, but like all things musical, it will be up to you to get down the basic skills you need to get. All a teacher can do is present what they know to you, make sure you understand it, the do what they can to help keep you headed the way you want to go.

So the answer to the question is yes, it will work. There's loads of material, in books, videos, on TV and in workshops to help you gain the knowledge.

You simply need to invest the money and time.