About Me
My name is Eugene Portman and I have been a professional musician from the age of eighteen. My experience covers many different performing roles from pub singalongs and weddings to classical concerts, jazz clubs and even ballet accompaniment. I am an active performer and provide music for a variety of events.
I am based in the Horsham area and I am happy to travel to you so that I can teach you on your own instrument. I have found that people are more relaxed in their own environment and learn much more easily. This is especially true when it comes to jazz and blues improvisation. I cover Horsham, Crawley, Broadbridge Heath, Southwater, Pease Pottage, Warnham and surrounding areas. My piano teaching reflects my own personal experiences as a performer and includes many tricks and tips that I have learned along the way.
I was classically trained and I found it a very difficult to improvise. It seemed that the skills that I had learned in my training didn’t help with the challenges that I had to face outside of the classical world. In actual fact I often found my highly disciplined classical training a hindrance rather than being beneficial. It was a barrier that had to be broken down.
Who I Teach
I am at my best teaching people who have a basic knowledge of musical theory and have an understanding of how to read sheet music. I don’t usually teach complete beginners or children. I find that there are many other teachers around that can do this very competently.
My speciality is teaching pianists who can already play the piano and help them to be more free and creative. Freedom and creativity are essential qualities when playing jazz, blues and more popular styles of music. I find that very often a student just needs to be shown a few scales and a few tricks to get them started in their journey to being able to improvise freely.
I can also guide more advanced pianists so that they are more able to perform in a professional environment. My teaching covers all the fundamentals with a view to enabling the pupil to improvise freely in many styles of music including blues, jazz, Latin, pop and rock.
I give face to face piano lessons and I can travel to you so that you can be taught on your own instrument.
What You Will Learn
My teaching program will help enable you to play 12 bar blues, jazz standards, plus pop and rock songs. You will learn to read chord charts, accompany singers, as well as improvise fluently. You will also learn chords, scales and modes, block chords, tritone substitution and many other fundamentals of harmony.
If you would like to find out more about me, then please visit www.eugeneportman.com