www.piano4everyone.com

by Michael Leppert

Dr. Katya Gliadkovsky is an accomplished music educator, pianist, and passionate advocate for making high-quality music education accessible to students of all ages. As the founder and director of Piano4everyone in Tarzana, CA, she has dedicated her career to transforming the way children and adults learn piano by creating an environment where learning is engaging, supportive, and affordable.

Katya began teaching piano at Santa Monica College in Los Angeles in 1995 while completing her graduate studies at the USC Thornton School of Music. She later earned both her Master’s and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from USC and continues to teach at Santa Monica College today.

More than fifteen years ago, Dr. Gliadkovsky founded Piano4everyone with a simple but powerful vision: To make piano education available to everyone. She believed that, unlike dance, art, or sports, piano lessons were often viewed as a luxury because they were traditionally taught one-on-one and could be prohibitively expensive for many families.

Through Piano4everyone, Katya created a different model—one that maintains the highest educational standards while remaining affordable and welcoming to students from all backgrounds. Her innovative group piano program combines individualized attention with the energy and encouragement of learning alongside peers.

At Piano4everyone, students don’t simply learn to play notes. They develop the confidence to read music independently, build strong technical and musical foundations, and enjoy playing the songs they love. Katya believes that learning should be both educational and enjoyable, allowing students to experience the satisfaction of steady progress without becoming overwhelmed.

Throughout her many years of teaching, Katya observed that many young pianists lose interest because they are introduced to difficult repertoire before they are truly ready. In an effort to meet expectations for quick results, students often become frustrated and eventually quit. At Piano4everyone, the curriculum is carefully structured so that every student progresses at an appropriate pace, building confidence and lasting skills every step of the way.

Katya embraces the philosophy of Recreational Music Making, believing that the learning journey is just as important as the final performance. Her goal extends far beyond teaching students to play the piano. She hopes to inspire a lifelong appreciation for music by exposing students to a wide variety of styles, including classical, pop, blues, ragtime, Disney, and other quality repertoire. She strives to develop not only capable pianists, but also future concertgoers, music lovers, and supporters of the arts.

Students at Piano4everyone enjoy a well-rounded curriculum that integrates piano performance, music theory, technique, rhythm training, ear development, and sight-reading into every lesson. Group classes foster motivation, confidence, teamwork, and friendships while making exceptional music education more affordable for families. Ω

Twice each year, Piano4everyone celebrates its students’ accomplishments with themed recital performances that provide every student with the opportunity to perform in a fun, encouraging, and memorable setting.

The name Piano4everyone reflects Dr. Gliadkovsky’s lifelong mission: To make excellent piano education accessible, enjoyable, and affordable for everyone who wishes to experience the joy of making music.

Whether your child is a complete beginner or already has piano experience, Piano4everyone offers a fun, encouraging, and affordable path to lifelong musical enjoyment. We invite you to discover why so many families have made Piano4everyone their musical home. Visit www.piano4everyone.com to learn more about our programs and upcoming classes. Ω

http://www.interlochen.org/

Are you a homeschooling parent searching for ways to bring the arts into your curriculum? If so, you’re not alone. Many families look for a trusted homeschool art curriculum that’s both accessible and meaningful, but often feel underqualified to teach the arts themselves or struggle to find a reliable local option.

The good news: There are more resources available than ever, to help families provide students with quality arts education at home. From structured online programs to expert-designed lessons, here are five trusted ways to bring world-class arts instruction into your homeschool.

1. Start with Structure: Look for a Complete Arts Curriculum

When parents search for “homeschool art curriculum,” what they often want is more than project ideas—they want a program with structure and progression. A strong curriculum doesn’t just introduce isolated skills, but builds them step by step across disciplines like music, creative writing, visual arts, film, and theatre.

Some online platforms offer a wide range of courses designed by professional teaching artists, giving families a ready-to-use structure that fits seamlessly into a homeschool plan. Search for an online arts curriculum that complements your student’s interests while also fitting the rhythm of your family’s lifestyle.

2. Rely on Expert Instructors

For many families, the biggest hurdle is confidence: “I’m not an artist, how can I teach this well?” That’s where programs taught by experts can make all the difference. A trusted online course should connect your student with educators who are passionate about their art form, skilled at breaking down complex concepts, and experienced at engaging learners virtually.

Parents don’t have to be the teacher, programs like Interlochen Online handle the instruction while parents support and encourage from the sidelines.

3. Balance Affordability with Value

Cost is always a factor when building a homeschool curriculum. Free resources may offer quick activities, but often lack structure or personal feedback. On the other hand, private lessons can be prohibitively expensive.

High-value, short-term online courses often provide a middle ground. Many offer multi-week sessions or certificate-style programs that deliver clear outcomes without requiring a long-term financial commitment. For families balancing multiple subjects, this combination of affordability and depth can make all the difference.

4. Prioritize Community and Connection

Homeschooling offers flexibility, but it can sometimes take more effort and intentionality to create connections, especially for students passionate about the arts. That’s why community is an essential component of any strong curriculum. Look for programs that include live sessions, group discussions, or peer-to-peer feedback, giving students the chance to connect with others who share their interests.

A supportive community doesn’t just enhance learning—it helps students feel motivated, understood, and part of something bigger.

5. Think Ahead: Arts and College Preparation

The arts aren’t just enrichment, they can also play an important role in preparing for the future. A number of online programs now offer college advising, whether for students pursuing the arts or not. From essay writing to résumé coaching to audition prep, this type of support can make a big difference when it’s time to apply to college.

Families who plan ahead and choose arts programs with future goals in mind will find that creative study can be both personally enriching and practically valuable.

Bringing It All Together

Families don’t need to be professional artists, or piece together dozens of disconnected resources, to provide their students with high-quality arts education at home. By focusing on structure, expert teaching, affordability, community, and college preparation, parents can find programs that meet their homeschool needs and inspire their students to thrive.

Interlochen Online is one example of an organization offering accessible, world-class arts instruction that fits seamlessly into a homeschool plan. But whichever path you choose, the right arts program can enrich your student’s education, build their confidence, and connect them with a wider world of creativity. Ω

By Michael Leppert

The pipe organ is often referred to as the “King of Instruments”. Anyone who has ever sat in a large cathedral and experienced the wall-moving power of the large pipes, instantly knows why. If one wished to follow the convention of nick-naming of instruments along the same lines, the piano might be called the “Horse of Instruments”. No other musical invention has provided such a broad and expansive usefulness to humankind as the piano. Played from parlor to honky-tonk, nightclub to concert hall, by rank amateurs to amazing professionals; composed for by Liszt, Chopin, Joplin and Jelly-Roll; the standard instrument for composers and arrangers of all instrumental combinations; the bane of many an eight-year-old and the joy of every one who perseveres to mastery, the piano has seen and done it all – and has not slowed down. The brilliant inventor, Harold Rhodes, even developed a new variation on the piano during World War II, that has become part of the sound spectrum of the instrument today.

So, from whence came this wonderful wooden “horse”?

In the 1150s or thereabouts, what would look to us like a simple, almost primitive, keyed instrument was developed. It was a group of individual “strings”, stretched over a wooden sounding board, to create amplification. Keys were pressed down which would cause the string to be struck and more than one note could be played simultaneously. There had been hammered stringed instruments (hammered dulcimer) and plucked stringed instruments (the harp, psaltery and later, the harpsichord), but this instrument was a departure from the previous technology.

Strings, too, were undergoing a gradual change for the better. Originally, animal intestines or “gut” were twisted and wound to improve strength and then dried and stretched to use in making ancient stringed instruments.

As metalworking developed and became more sophisticated, wire composed of various metals developed, especially in Germany, where they were often made of silver or gold or in cheaper versions, baser metals and then merely plated with the precious metals.

In the mid-1400s, the clavichord, which was a small and simple forerunner of the piano, had been developed to a point where many models were available. The mechanical action of the clavichord was not the same as that of the piano, but it was a positive step in the development of the ultimate technology.

The keyed instrument family grew over the next 300 years, taking on various plucked members, each one more elaborate in its mechanism, until finally, in 1709, a Florentine instrument maker, Bartolomeo Christofori, built a series of “harpsichords” capable of playing soft and loud – “piano e forte”, ultimately shortened to pianoforte, the modern proper name of the piano. But his harpsichord was hammered, not plucked, and it possessed two strings per note. (Modern pianos have three strings per note from the highest note down to A below middle C, then two per note down to the G an octave and one step below, then single strings for the remainder of the bass register.)

Over the 15 years or so, Christofori developed a way to dampen one of the two strings, so when the hammer struck, only one of the strings sounded. This allowed for more variations in volume than merely how hard the key was depressed. By 1720, he had built a number of pianos. (Some of his early pianos are still in existence. One of them is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.)

In 1725, a German instrument-maker tried his hand at copying Cristofori’s invention and then other German craftsmen took up making pianos. The instrument was not an overwhelming success at first, with competition from the harpsichord and the organ, but as time passed, more and more players began to take a serious interest in the piano. By 1760, the instrument was a permanent fixture in the German music world. The piano had been growing in popularity in France and England, as well, and the three countries had many fine piano makers.

Of course, once the piano became that popular, the need for music was close at hand. Players and composers began to develop their pianistic abilities and it wasn’t long before a repertoire for the new instrument was growing. To give you an idea of what other musical events were occurring around this period, here are some highlights:

1742 Handel’s Messiah premieres

1768 Johann Christian Bach (son of Johann Sebastian) gives a piano recital in London

1770 Beethoven is born

1772 two pedals – sustain and soft – are becoming commonplace in England

1800 a set of piano sonatas are completed by Reinagle

1810 Chopin is born

1811 Liszt is born; Prague Conservatory is founded

1817 Vienna Conservatory is founded

1826 Two piano methods are published in Europe

1828 The Bosendorfer piano company opens in Vienna

1839 The Czerny Method for Developing Piano Technique is published

American piano makers were hard at work, as well, with the first one made in Philadelphia in 1775 and Jonas Chickering beginning his piano making in 1823 in Boston. Chickering developed the iron plate that made it possible for heavier strings to be used and thus, provide us with the grand piano sound we are so used to today. Many other companies, many founded by English craftsmen, produced fine instruments in America during this time. At first, square grands and some spinets were the most popular models manufactured. By 1890, upright pianos had become the favorite in homes and represented the majority of sales in the U.S. In the first 30 years of the 20^th century, the spinet returned to popularity, as many Americans moved into small apartments that could not accommodate uprights.

In every American home that could have one, the piano was the focal point of music making. Families entertained themselves by gathering around the piano and singing or dancing or playing instruments together, and the pianist was the mainstay of this activity. Studying the piano was considered an important part of every young lady’s education, virtually guaranteeing a pianist in every household. But it was the young men across the country who were mastering the instrument and making it the center of virtually every musical endeavor — whether live performance or arranging and composing.

In the realm of popular music, in both legitimate settings or those of less-than-proper repute, the piano made its presence felt. In St. Louis, a Classically-trained, African-American composer, Scott Joplin, brought piano-playing to new heights of difficulty and complexity with his Rag Time style. Downriver, in New Orleans, a non-Classically-trained (therefore “folk”) pianist, Jelly Roll Morton, was doing his part to elevate piano playing in his own way with Stride and Boogie Woogie. Both men – and many other contemporaries – succeeded well, and even today, the various forms they developed are among the most challenging and difficult there are in the piano world.

As piano playing evolved and changed through the 1930s and ‘40s, men like Count Basie (who was self-taught) and the sophisticated and elegant Duke Ellington, brought another facet of piano playing to the fore. All through the Big Band era, piano remained indispensable to both front men and arrangers, the latter needing to have the full spectrum of instrument range possibilities available to them, that only the piano can afford.

With the Post-War era dawning, the technology to electrify instruments – especially the guitar – sounded the death knell for the piano and its dominance of pop music. In the late 1950s and 1960s, the electric guitar would become the voice of the generation and piano was relegated to a very rare appearance.

Fortunately, during this time, the classical world did not change so much and the piano maintained its place of importance and relevance. During the late 1800s and into the 20^th century, pianistic giants such as Sergei Rachmaninoff and Peter Tchaicovsky, composed and played incredible pieces, pushing the envelope of virtuosity further with each passing year. In the late 1980s and 1990s, “New Age” composers/performers used the piano again, to present their simple, but beautiful pieces and the electric piano made live performing in even small venues possible.

Today, interest in classical piano is as robust as ever. Annual competitions are alive and well, with over 340 in the United States alone. Among homeschoolers, playing the piano may be returning to its former place of value as home-entertainment, too. With many families eschewing the vapid wasteland of television, self-made music is growing in popularity and the piano is still the central instrument in this endeavor. Senor Cristofori’s marvelous wooden horse is still kicking, taking its riders on excursions into an exceptional world of wonder and beauty – all for just the price of a few minutes of practice every day! MjL