Piano Garden Studio

High-quality classical piano lessons with strong technical foundation from the first lessons, ear training, sound production. Play-based pedagogies for kids 5+.

Katia Karkkainen, MFA

510 Anglewood Dr Lenoir City Tennessee 37772;

kateaudio@gmail.com; 615 810 7817 (call, text)

Classical piano with music theory, chord progressions,

What makes lessons at Piano Garden Studio effective?
From the very first lessons, we are learning solid foundation for piano technique. It is an important sequence of skills, that is missing in most 'popular' method books but is widely used in Eastern Europe where quality of recreational music playing is valued.
To achieve performance freedom, we learn skills in following order:
1. Non legato (disconnected notes) only on one finger both hands first. Free vertical wrist motion, hand posture, relaxed hands. No five-finger positions at all for beginners. Gradually adding more fingers - longest first, and after hand posture is established we are adding pinkie and thumb. No flat fingers, no collapsed knuckles. Teacher is 'molding' students' hands, showing them the right motions and listening how it affects sound.
2. Two-note slurs - we learn to connect two notes with circular smooth hand motion. The second note continues the first note dynamically.
3. Three notes slurs - connection of three notes on one hand motion - no bouncing on each note.
4. 4-5 and more note slurs, longer phrases.
Coordination of both hands, rhythms from the first lessons.
This first step should be done in the right order with exercises from the book, with attention and focus to details. These skills will help you to phrase music beautifully and deliver many nuances. I don't give any pieces of students' choice at this step, since it creates bad habits and delays progress. After these basic skills are established, we start playing more music, and the more skills you learn the more music you can play.

I have two pianos in my studio:
Kawai 506N Acoustic Upright and Yamaha P-515B Digital Piano.
We mostly use Kawai upright in lessons since it is a professional quality piano with beautiful sound which is very responsive to varitey of dynamics and touches.
I nearest future I also plan to get a nice baby grand piano.

We are a good fit, if:
1. You treat music as a part of your education, not only "one more fun afterschool activity"
2. You have time and energy to practice daily or almost daily at home
3. Parents are involved in their kids' home practice
4. You have a good piano at home. Acoustical piano is the best (pre-owned are great). I allow fully-weighted key action digital ones for beginners in case you can't get an acoustical, but I don't start lessons if you have small light weighted or semi-weighted action keyboards - they are not pianos and you will not learn the hand posture on them.
Sometimes parents think that they will use those 'toy keyboards' for a few months or even a year, but it only creates problems. Students don't enjoy the sound, the touch is very different, so they get frustrated when playing in lesson, and as a result they lose interest. Get a good piano from the start. Yes, it is investment, but you already invest in lessons and time as well. In worst case, you will always sell it, but it will be way more likely that a child will enjoy lessons more when he/she can practice on a nice piano at home.

Tales of Musical Journey program
for young beginners 4-8 y.o.

What makes this method unique and effective?

It starts with playing only with one finger (finger 3) while learning how to relax the rest of the fingers and hand, and learning the wrist motion. Many other methods like Piano Adventures or Alfred miss this step, they start using too many fingers at once right away, which causes tension in the hand fingers that are sticking out. 90% of our sound at the piano is controlled by the wrist and arm, not even by fingers, and Tales break down these concepts in a kids-friendly easy manner.
You will be surprised how many nice pieces you can play only with finger 3 with both hands: we play beautiful duets based on popular classics like Pachelbel’s Canon, Handel’s Passacaglia, Grieg's Morning Mood.
This book unlike other books includes written details about HOW exactly to play each piece, so parents can review it at home. So many books only have notation, but do not explain what to do with the wrist, or how to develop the right touch, so at best kids end up playing “the right notes at the right time” with flat fingers and no arm weight.
Especially if you want to be able to play classical music in future - check out Tales of Musical Journey.
Check out a video with 4 y.o. students playing classical pieces with only finger 3 while learning the right hand posture

I taught multiple piano methods over the years, and I came to the conclusion that the best method for kids to get a strong technical background and develop musicality is Tales of Musical Journey by Irina Gorin. This is a beginner step, after which you can switch to any other method. You can watch videos of her lessons with very young kids to have a better idea what to expect, for example this is a lesson #4 with a 4 y.o. student ---->

How to organize your piano learning process

3 rules of success - very important!

Bring your books and music sheets to EACH lesson

This rule is very music specific. Although your teacher has all the books in the studio, it is very important to bring your own so that the teacher could make you notes, write finger numbers and other reminders in your book and music sheet. There are some writing assignment there as well that you need to do in your own book. Make a folder or a bag for your music stuff and bring it to each lesson.

It also helps the teacher to follow where we stopped last time in the book.

Make your home practice schedule

Make daily practice a habit. It does not have to be a lot - 15-30 minutes is usually enough, but it should be consistent. For kids under 7 just a few minutes a day is necessary.

Parents should not expect their kids to practice on their own. There are 0.001% of kids who practice on their own, but most of them don't. You have to sit with them in their home practice. If you just send them to practice on their own, you will not get much of result.

I would not recommend anyone who can't organize home practice to do music lessons.

Practice efficiently

If you practice efficiently, you will spend less time and get better results. Just playing a piece from beginning to end does not count as efficient practice.

1. Read through your teacher's homework assignment - there are specific requirements what to do and how to practice different section of the song. For small kids: a parent is responsible for reading teacher's assignment for them

2. Start with the hardest or newest sections of the song first. DON'T ALWAYS START FROM THE BEGINNING! Otherwise, you will know the beginning well, but will not learn other parts. Start from the middle. Or from the end. Work on more challenging parts while your brain is not too tired (and believe me -- it gets tired fast)

Work in SMALL SECTIONS of 1-2 measures -- repeat each section multiple times, one hand at a time, until it sounds smooth. Then move to the next section.

So many students don't use this advice, although it is so great because it is based on how our brain functions. You need to split a big task into multiple smaller tasks, and later consolidate all of them.

Acoustical piano in a good condition is always the best choice for a piano beginner.

Acoustical piano has the same length as fully weighted digital pianos, so the only space you are saving is just a little of vertical space. Horizontally they are identical. But you will learn way more skills on acoustical piano rather than on digital one.

If you have to buy a digital, here are some things to consider:

The choice of a keyboard is very important. It does not have to cost a fortune, but it needs to be a real instrument, not just a toy. There are three main parameters you need to looks for:

Digital piano (or keyboard) with a FULLY weighted key action. This means that the keyboard is going to react differently to different touches, so you can create sound with various dynamics (from soft to loud). “Toy” keyboard are not weighted or semi-weighted, which will produce a more monotonous sound.
88 keys. Don’t buy those 61-keys keyboards, they are not weighted and kids with smaller keyboards often get lost on bigger ones and start playing in the wrong octaves :)
Has built-in speakers
Less buttons is better. When you see a keyboard with a LOT of buttons, it usually means it is a synthesizer. Kids end up playing with buttons more rather than practicing. Also they can mess up settings. Especially watch that Transpose button – if it is on, the pitch can be off by a lot and everything will sound very different from what it should be. Also when you have 300 built in instruments, it usually means that they all are of a poor quality. Better to have just 5 instruments, but good sounding ones (like Digital Pianos have).

The brand is also important. There are a lot of cheap keyboards on Amazon and Walmart, they sound terrible and they don’t last long. It is better to get cheaper models of brands who make professional instruments, such as Yamaha, Roland, Casio, Korg, Kawai.

Here are some good entry-level models: Yamaha P-71 ($399 on Amazon), Yamaha P-45, P-125, Casio CDP series, Casio Privia series (to my taste, Yamaha sounds more natural that Casio that has more “plastic” sound, but they are still good for beginners)

If you want to save some money, I would recommend buying a nice used piano. It is better than a new “toy” piano. Check out Facebook marketplace – people often sell lightly used pianos there. You can get Casio for $200-250 range, and Yamahas in $300-350 range. If it still seems too expensive, keep in mind that even if you drop lessons you will easily sell a good digital piano in a day for a good price. While “toy” pianos are sitting on the Marketplace and nobody buys them.

If you buy a pre-owned piano, google the model/make and make sure it is a fully weighted action. It is often hard to tell from the picture. For example, Yamaha Piaggero is not weighted, although it looks very similar to weighted models.

Bonus:

How to make piano practice at home more fun - let’s be creative!

Try to make practice a game. It can be a dressed recital at home, where you put toys in rows to listen, put on cool clothes and pretend like you are playing in a concert hall before the audience. Check how your kid looks at the piano in a funny halloween costume, a princess dress, a new t-shirt (hint: every time you buy new clothes – do a piano recital in those clothes!)
Use a stuffed animal or a ball to throw to your kid during piano practice. For example, the kid is working on 4 measures of a piece/song, and every four measures you throw a stuffed animal, the kid throws it back to you, and repeats those 4 measures again. It is funny that all kids like this game, I often use it in lessons too. It is also a great way to check if the piece is performance ready – when you throw something every 4 measures, it switches your attention from piano, but then you need to go back and continue from the same place where you stopped (not from the very beginning). If a student is able to play with such intentional “distructions”, then he/she is 120% ready for a recital.
Check out keyboard stands on locking wheels. If you have hard floors, you can roll your keyboard in different parts of the house
Reward your kids for good practice.
You can make a practice journal and make them “earn” stickers.
Task Jar: write piano tasks on small piece of paper, fold them and put them in a jar. Your kid is going to pull out a task from the jar, so you can do them in random orders.

If you think of any new ideas on how to encourage your kids to practice – please let me know and I will add it to this list :)

Wilbeck method to learn music notation through fun stories and games for kids 4+

About your teacher:
Katia Karkkainen

My education:

Gnesins College of Music (Moscow, Russia) - Music Education/Music Theory with a strong minor in Piano
Gnesins Academy of Music (Moscow, Russia) - Music Recording and Production with a strong minor in Piano
Middle Tennessee State University (Murfreesboro, TN) - M.F.A. in Recording Arts and Technologies

8 years of experience teaching private lessons to students ages 5-64 (beginners and intermediates).

10 years experience working as a recording/mixing engineer in the recording studio, TV live broadcast including Winter Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014, and six theaters in Miami, FL.

2 years teaching in Performance Arts programs at community colleges (Miami Dade College and Broward College).

In Summer 2023 I moved to Knoxville, TN area where my husband started a new job at Oak Ridge National Labs.

I started asking my parents to teach me piano at the age of 3, and at the age of 5 I started my music journey that never ends.

My teaching evaluation from Broward College (Florida)

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