Why Audio Recordings?

Audio recodings (CD's and cassettes) form the backbone of our courseware for this simple reason. In order to learn to play music, you must first be able to hear it. Written music notation — sheet music — is really just an attempt to preserve music visually. But written notation is not really music. It’s only potential music. It’s just paper and ink.

While standard music notation may work for classical music, it’s not accurate enough to represent the rhythmic complexities found in pop music. Thus piano students who learn popular songs exclusively from sheet music are almost always disappointed by their results.

We teach primarily by CD, because the recordings give you a chance to hear how the music should sound. And you can hear the examples as many times as you need.

Famed motivational speaker Earl Nightingale observed the following about recorded media. “...when the lesson is recorded, you can stop the tape to dwell on any thought that excites you. And, even better, you can play the recording again and again until every subtlety of the message is embedded in your mind.”

This is especially true when the subject is music.

With our system, you learn music the same way you might learn a foreign language from recordings. Precorded cassettes and CD's allow you to recreate the nuances of music that notation cannot hope to represent.

Go ahead and ask a professional musician (non classical) how they learn new songs. Perhaps some still buy the sheet music, but the vast majority will tell you they learn by listening to recordings.

With our CD courseware, it’s even possible to learn without attending a workshop. The system is that simple. Just pop the CD or cassette into a portable player you keep conveniently at your piano, and go from there. Then you can reinforce your learning by playing the recordings in the car, while exercising, or while doing other nonproductive chores. It’s the best way to learn to speak the language of music.

With recordings you get the benefits of practicing without the pain. Be prepared to hear results.

Click the topics below to discover more about our system.

• About Us
• Why We’re Different
• What Can You Learn in a Day?
• Why Audio Recordings?
• A Brief History of NSAM