Please contact me to register your interest for the Free introductory session, to enrol in upcoming courses or for more information. E-mail Anneka or Telephone: 9335 5389

Welcome to Anneka Sparkes Piano / Keyboard Instruction website, presenting the Simply Music program which is a breakthrough in music learning with unprecedented results.

Click the keys and enter the exciting world of playing the piano for pleasure!

“This method offers a total overhaul of traditional music education”, says Anneka.

It is so unfortunate that making music appears to be the domain of an elite few, and we look with envy at those few musicians who have taught themselves, or those composers who have had years of conservatory lessons.

Being a musician I often meet people who either sigh and say they had years of piano lessons, but can’t play anything, or people who play beautifully, but shrug shyly and say “I’m not very good; I can’t even read music”.

And everybody questions themselves. Nobody wonders whether there might be something wrong about the way in which we teach people how to play.

I have found that everybody, no exceptions, is profoundly musical, and capable of learning to play beautiful music very quickly. I believe we were meant to express ourselves musically; It’s not for nothing that making instruments goes back to ancient times, that we’re imbued with rhythm, and that in the olden days and in other cultures making music for pleasure and entertainment is accessible to just about everyone.

Of course students also learn how to read music. When I introduce the reading process, it complements students’ ability to play. Students who in their childhood have learned to play by learning how to read first, now feel as if a huge puzzle is finally falling into place. By the end of the program students have a huge reportoire; they can “self-generate”, i.e. obtain a music score and figure it out themselves; they can improvise and compose; they have a strong foundation in the accompaniment process and the jazz process and most importantly, they have had an enjoyable and self-affirming experience in the process.

With Simply Music we capitalise on the enormous amount of musical information that everyone collects in their lifetime.

Spoken sentences are in fact musical phrases of astonishing complexity. Walking or tieing shoe laces are examples of highly complex and rhythmic actions, that resemble the choreography of playing a two handed piece on the piano. In addition people have had an input of countless hours of hearing many styles of music. Simply Music uses very current outcome based teaching methods. Every piece is broken down into small steps that only require one thought process at the time. I take students through each step slowly until they’ve got it, so it always feels like a victory. Every step is also presented on video, so students can go home and play, coming to the next lesson ready to add the next step.

Here’s something to think about: If we taught children how to speak by teaching them how to read first, most of them would undoubtedly give up! Everybody would think this speaking business was very complicated, and we would produce people who could only speak from script and who, without script, could say nothing! Laughable? But that’s exactly what has often happened with music education.

“Simply Music” is a multi-sensory program, using touch, visual patterns, our ears and building our reportoire, one step at a time. My students love being able to play song after song, often ten in their first ten lessons; popular music, blues and jazz, ballads, classical and accompaniment pieces.