Zach Evans is changing the way people are learning piano.
In the old days, you’d find the local piano teacher in town, go to their house, and pay for weekly lessons.
And for a while, Zach was one of those piano teachers. Until one day he realized he could reach thousands more students if he took his teaching online. So that’s what he did.
He simply bought a camera, some simple lights off of Amazon, a basic microphone, and started recording the exact same lessons he was teaching to in-person students. And put them up for free on the internet.
And people loved it. His high-energy teaching style, and focus on detail was perfect for YouTube. And he quickly grew his channel to over 100,000 subscribers in a very short period of time.
And for people who like the YouTube videos, well, they can get more in depth training by signing up for his Become a Piano Superhuman course.
But learning piano online doesn’t come without its challenges. The biggest challenge, according to Zach, is keeping people motivated during the learning process.
He combats this by structuring the courses to prioritize Motivation over Information. Giving students some of the “fun stuff” first, before going back and teaching the fundamentals. He detailed the strategy recently in a TEDx Talk.
So far an impressive 200,000 people have signed up for the course, learning everything from technique, to music theory, to how to play piano by ear.
As technology continues to expand, Zach thinks it’s inevitable that more and more of teaching and learning is going to be done online, whether that’s piano, or any other industry. And he’s happy to be on the front end of it.