Meet the Teacher

Hi Everyone, My name is April Chapman and I have been teaching Piano for over 20 years. I have a love for music education and my goal is to make it as fun and easy to understand for all ages and abilities. I particularly enjoy working with absolute beginners – and yes I genuinely believe that everyone can learn to play the Piano and it’s never to late to start…

My Piano Academy started in September 2002 and quickly grew to a student base for 230 students, 7 instrumental teachers, a fabulous ladies choir, a fun ukulele orchestra and a very enthusiastic orchestra for adult beginners. It was an amazing journey filled with inspiring teachers, eager students and many fabulous musical experiences and performances.

In March 2020 the world changed…The Piano Academy was forced to close due to the pandemic and it was a very difficult time for everyone.

Lock down gave me a chance to research how I could best deliver Piano and Music Theory online. The world was changing and the music education industry had to embrace the new, exciting technology that was available. I found it fascinating and loved the challenges and possibilities of the new virtual world.

Now the Piano Academy looks very different but it is still the vibrant and music filled place that it always was. It’s mostly online now and I still give “Live” music lessons every week to my students and we still get together for performances and recitals whenever we can.

The music examination boards also changed massively during the pandemic and I am so pleased they did as it means that I can still present students for their musical grade examinations. Over the years I have entered hundreds of students for Piano and Music Theory grades. In fact in 2013 I was asked to work for the ABRSM examination board as the HLR for Lincolnshire and the Piano Academy was approved as an Examination Centre.

I am a great believer in the importance of music students having a good education in music theory. In 2020 I took part in the pilot of the new ABRSM online Music Theory Exam. I was very relieved to get 100%. This has now been rolled out internationally and is the main reason that I now deliver Online Music Theory Courses for the ABRSM Grade 1-5. Check out www.discovermusictheory.com for more information about my courses.

My teaching life now…

In May 2021 my husband retired and wanted to move to Spain. After working in construction for 50 years and volunteering to the RNLI for 46 of them, I felt that it was deserved. It was also a fantastic opportunity for us to start the next chapter of our lives together in the sun… So we went for it.

We now live in an idilic Spanish village called Benahavis, near Marbella in Southern Spain.

I have a wonderful teaching space to continue my music education services. I now deliver weekly “live” lessons and create piano and music theory lesson video’s. Over the last 20 years I feel that I have gained so much experience in teaching Piano & Music Theory that I want to record it in to bitesize educational video’s to help students learn and these are available for students to download via our student portal.

I genuinely believe that learning to play piano is something that everyone can enjoy at any age. I have many students that are returning to piano after not having played for decades as well as adult students that have always wanted to learn to play but have never had the time or resources before. It is a very rewarding hobby and I would recommend everyone to give a go.

I hope to be able to offer soon “Piano Retreats in the Sun” for Adult Beginners.

If you would like to receive more information about “Piano Holidays for Beginners” then please contact me, I’d love to hear from you.