"I've taken classes from other online teachers.
I have learned more from you in two weeks compared to the others in over two years.
I now know how to use the techniques, most importantly, I know why. Thanks Nate, you're truly a great piano teacher."
- - Charles J
"Nate has taught me more about music theory, technique and the pure joy of "seasoning and layering" chords than I ever imagined.
The cost of the course is beyond reasonable and so many levels of piano playing can benefit from it. It has enhanced my level and confidence immensely and I look forward to learning more from this humble, thorough and magical
instructor!"
- - Lisa F
"I first tried traditional piano lessons 20 years ago and became unmotivated with the endless scales and Disney songs. I gave up unsatisfied after almost two years. In just 4 months of playing using your course and videos, I am beginning to be able to do what I had originally dreamed about doing. Thanks again, I really appreciate it"
- - Jeff G
Does this sound like you?
You've been playing piano for a while but feel frustrated that you don't sound anything like your favorite recordings.
Your playing sounds clunky, and you feel boxed in by your limited skillset.
You feel overwhelmed by the amount of stuff there is to learn, and you're not sure what is going to actually help you get better.
You keep your playing to yourself, but secretly wish you could have fun wowing people with your beautiful music.
The chord trap
Almost every casual piano player learns 3-note chords like "C major" and "A minor." It's a great way to start playing our favorite pop and rock songs, which can usually be boiled down to a basic chord progression.
After the thrill of learning songs like this fades, soon many players get stuck in a rut and stop progressing.
The notes of those clunky chords are like jail bars restricting their playing, preventing them from being able to play beautiful music that turns heads.
Instead, their playing feels clumsy and limited. They feel like they'll never sound great and play like a pro. It seems like they're "missing something" that's holding them back.
Any music lover with a bit of motivation to learn deserves to experience the blissful feeling of letting the music flow out of them.
Imagine If...
You had a repeatable strategy to "break open" any chord progression and turn it into a piano part that shines.
You could make your accompaniment playing sound expressive, dynamic, and exciting so that your family and friends would love to listen.
You had a deep musical toolkit so you could make any song hit just right and move the listener.
You could "lose yourself" in your playing, rather than feeling like a robot hitting the chords in a sequence.
Someone showed you exactly what to practice, in what order, so that you could easily take your playing to that elusive next level.
Hi! I'm Nate Terepka
I quit my piano lessons at age ten. I loved music. I just hated the boring sheet music my teacher gave me, so my piano collected dust.
All that changed when a friend asked me to join a garage band. The plan was to play at the middle-school talent show! The problem was, I wasn't very good...
In my small town, "rock piano lessons" weren't a thing. It was classical or...figure it out on your own. So that's what I did.
I started to teach myself by following the chord charts from Beatles songbooks. I was terrible at first -- my playing was clunky and rough. I worried about getting kicked out of the band.
With my budding teenage social life at stake, I started practicing nonstop, copying the piano parts on my favorite records.
I even skipped classes in high school (sorry, mom) to hole up in the piano practice room.
It took years, but I finally got to the point where I could express myself through the piano, and people actually wanted to listen!
Getting to that point was pure bliss. Now, nothing makes me happier than helping others get there as well.
When I started teaching private piano lessons a decade ago, I felt like an imposter. I didn't have a fancy music degree or anything like that.
To my surprise, my business exploded. Apparently, most people don't want to be burdened with strict classical traditions and elitist music theory. They want to have fun and sound great.
When I think back to my youth, I can't help but feel I could have improved much faster if the right teacher had shown me the techniques I figured out by trial-and-error.
I have helped thousands of students play piano, and now I want to support you and help you succeed!
That's why I've put together the roadmap I wish I'd had when I was getting started.
I am so excited to introduce you to...
Introducing:
The ultimate guide to creating awesome piano parts from any chord progression.
Piano Chord Breakthroughs is a 5-level, step-by-step video course that teaches you how to create amazing-sounding piano parts by building upon simple chords.
You'll learn the piano techniques used by the pros to make their playing sound graceful, exciting, and alive.
Anyone can take a chord progression and turn it into a beautiful piano part using the step-by-step tools in Piano Chord Breakthroughs.
In Piano Chord Breakthroughs, you will:
- Fix technique issues that are thwarting your piano progress.
- Master engaging and energetic sounding rhythms that you can apply to countless songs.
- Play complex-sounding music without note-reading/sheet music.
- Learn the steps to turn any chord progression into a head-turning piano arrangement.
- Discover how to express yourself and let the music flow out of you.
- Improve your finger and hand coordination.
- Break through to a new level of creativity and freedom in your piano playing.
Here's what's inside of Piano Chord Breakthroughs
Foundations
Creating a solid base to build upon. In the video lessons at the first level, we'll optimize your technique for success and start improving our rhythmic muscle memory to help navigate more advanced playing.
Two Hands & Dynamics
Filling out your sound to make your playing hit just right. We'll discuss arrangement strategies for adding power to your chords with the left hand, as well as utilizing the piano's dynamic (loudness) range to bring your music to life.
Inversions
Giving your playing more fluidity and color by breaking out of the same old chord shapes. This will actually make your chord progressions easier to play! You'll learn how to choose your chord inversions to create "hidden melodies." Learning inversions was one of the most significant level-up moments I ever had as a piano player.
Arpeggios
Breaking apart your chords into beautiful rhythms and captivating patterns. When you turn your chords into arpeggio (broken chord) patterns, the listener will think you must have painstakingly learned the piece note-by-note using sheet music. Little will they know, you're simply thinking about the big-picture chord progression and letting patterns and muscle memory do the heavy lifting.
Next Level Tricks
Decorating your chord progressions to keep ears excited. Here I dish out a ton of cool tools and tricks - like suspended chord fills and passing bass notes - to make you sound like a piano pro. We'll also go deep on how to tie everything together to improvise beautiful music on the fly.
Original Songs
In my years of teaching piano, there is one approach I've found that reliably works, and it's how I structured the course:
1. Learn a new idea.
2. Hone it with a few practice exercises.
3. Immediately implement it in actual songs.
This way, the techniques become "second nature," part of the toolkit you use to express yourself for the rest of your musical journey.
Piano Chord Breakthroughs isn't just lessons and exercises; we're going to get our hands dirty with three different original chord progressions that I composed specifically for this course.
In the first module, I'll introduce them as a series of chords you play with your right hand.
Then, in each subsequent module, we'll develop and build upon them using techniques we've just covered. By the end of the course, they are fully formed piano parts!
The best part is you can see my thought process every step of the way as I figure out which techniques to use to serve the song best. This way, you'll be able to do the same with any chord progression!
When you sign up for Piano Chord Breakthroughs you get:
- Hours of jam-packed video lessons.
- Printable PDF workbooks full of exercises to help you master the techniques.
- Chord charts and instructions for playing the original songs.
- One year of email access to me to answer any questions about the course material that might come up. I want to guarantee you'll never feel stuck!
Answers To Your Questions
| What’s the difference between Piano Chord Breakthroughs and your YouTube videos? |
In Piano Chord Breakthroughs, I dive much deeper than I can in my YouTube videos. The video lessons in Piano Chord Breakthroughs go in order and build linearly towards a specific goal. Unlike learning piano on YouTube, you'll learn ideas in the correct order and never feel lost or wonder what to work on next.
| I already know how to play piano chords, why should I do this course? |
There was some confusion when I announced this course: Piano Chord Breakthroughs is not just a course to teach you how to play chords.
Instead, it teaches you all the cool things you can do with chords once you know how to play them.
I do include a couple of videos on how to find and play any piano chord, but I consider those prerequisites to help people make sure theyre ready for the main course.
| What if I’m a total beginner? |
Give it a try! This course starts with fundamentals, and you can go at your own pace. I also offer email support so you can reach out if you feel stuck.
However, the course does assume very basic knowledge, so if you are entirely new to piano, you will need to learn some basics like note names and how to find those notes on the keyboard. A motivated beginner can learn those quickly (search "first piano lesson" on YouTube) to prepare for Piano Chord Breakthroughs.
Finally, there is a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you are covered in the unlikely event you start the course and feel it is over your head.
| How about intermediate players? Will Piano Chord Breakthroughs work for us? |
Absolutely. If you are intermediate to advanced, some ideas in the lower levels will likely already be familiar.
That said, one thing that often holds intermediate players back from getting really good is gaps in foundational skills and technique. Piano Chord Breakthroughs can help patch up those holes in your knowledge and provide you with brand new tricks and ideas as well.
With the 30-day money-back guarantee, if you decide that the course is below your level, no sweat.
| Do I need to read sheet music/notes on the staff? |
Nope. Piano Chord Breakthroughs teaches you to play the piano simply by thinking about the "big picture" of the underlying chords you are playing. Building on these chords using specific techniques allows you to creatively improvise and write piano parts without ever using sheet music.
| Do you teach songs in the course? |
One problem that students often face is focusing entirely on songs. This course focuses on fundamental skills and techniques that can apply to any popular song. While Piano Chord Breakthroughs doesn't have any songs you will recognize (legally, I can't teach copyrighted songs in a paid course), I composed three original pieces for the course that we will use to put our new skills into action.
| What if I need help/have questions |
I never want my students to feel stuck, lost, or confused. When you purchase Piano Chord Breakthroughs, you get a full year of email support from me to clarify any questions about the course material.
A few closing thoughts
There was a moment when I was in high school, a few years after I joined my first garage band and got passionate about learning to play the piano...
My sister was home from college, and I sat down at the piano to play. I wasn't playing a song I had learned...I was just playing. I improvised on a chord progression, broke it apart, and created cool piano parts on the fly, making it up as I went along.
The music was just flowing out of me, and it sounded beautiful.
My sister was blown away: "Nate, you've gotten so amazing at piano!"
I felt so proud; proud that she was impressed, and proud that I now could easily express myself with my fingers on the keys.
I had spent countless hours exploring the piano and imitating my favorite recordings...and it had finally paid off.
That blissful feeling of getting lost in the flow of your playing–there's nothing else like it. The same tricks I used to reach this milestone in my piano playing are what I show you in Piano Chord Breakthroughs.
I worked for a year to create the ultimate course for people who want to create awesome piano parts from chord progressions. I am so excited to finally get this into the hands of motivated piano players ready to break through to that next level of playing.
Are you ready to break out of your piano rut and take your playing to the next level? Enroll below, and I'll see you on the other side.
To join, select an option below
"Nate has taught me more about music theory, technique and the pure joy of "seasoning and layering" chords than I ever imagined.
The cost of the course is beyond reasonable and so many levels of piano playing can benefit from it. It has enhanced my level and confidence immensely and I look forward to learning more from this humble, thorough and magical instructor!"
- - Lisa F
"I'm so glad I found Nate's course. It is everything it says on the tin. I'm an intermediate piano player, but before this course I had very little ability to improvise and make my pop songs with chords sound fun and great with cool rhythms.
I definitely recommend Piano Chord Breakthroughs if you want to play the songs you love and get more confident at it too!"
- - Neil L
"I am back on track, practicing, being enthusiastic, challenged but supported in a very well-grounded way. Merci!"
- - Marc-André B
"I bought the package of Keys To Chord Progressions and Piano Chord Breakthroughs and have found the learning materials to be invaluable. I was looking for someone to inspire me to practice, whilst feeling I was developing my understanding of music and having fun playing songs I wanted to play. Nate has definitely succeeded on all counts!
Nate has inspired me to learn songs following his beginner, intermediate and more advanced approach which has proved very successful. Rather than trying to just play the song like the original (nothing wrong with that, by the way!) - I find myself developing my own approach to songs, inspired by Nate's course materials."
- - Alex E
"I am 66 and always wanted to play the piano. The "Piano Chord Breakthrough" course cleared up questions I had about chords and inversions while also helping me better understand and apply rhythm and techniques. The "Keys to Chord Progressions" course was like turning on a switch and seeing the correlation between chords and keys. I can now transpose songs to fit my vocal range and breakout to change keys while playing. Both coursed have greatly improved my understanding of music theory.
I have learned more with Nate and his courses in a few months then I learned my previous 65 years. I would recommend these courses for anyone young, or old, who want to learn how to enhance and expand their playing ability."
- - Frank B
"I feel a lot more confident now."
- - John L
"Piano Chord Breakthroughs is exactly what I was looking for! The results are obvious even after just one lesson, I found myself going from simply memorizing songs to actually understanding music. I was able to quickly apply the techniques to songs I already knew as well as develop a routine that allows me to play freely, have fun and make my own music!
I really can't speak highly enough about this course, above and beyond, worth every penny. These lessons truly give you the skills to be able to actually play the piano!"
- - Ashley G
"I performed for the very first time in front of a live audience using Nate's approach.
I would absolutely recommend this Course for anyone interested in playing piano. The course is clear and concise and Nate has some amazing music that you can follow
along and learn for as you go."
- - Marty R
"As a beginner to piano, the multitude of courses and teachers out there was mind boggling to me. Nate's course is really the standard. It seems most of the online instructors I came across are doing nothing more than showing off.
Nate's courses are different. He teaches. Once I began to work through Nate's easy-to-understand program, it was a milestone in my keyboard journey. Now, I look forward to playing every day and I've come to recognize the piano as a beautiful instrument of expression. I would highly recommend Nate's excellent program."
- - Victor D
"I've taken classes from other online teachers.
I have learned more from you in two weeks compared to the others in over two years.
I now know how to use the techniques, most importantly, I know why. Thanks Nate, you're truly a great piano teacher."
- - Charles J
"Your course gave me a structured way to learn songs that are significantly more complex than what I could learn before. Also your course gave me a clear way to learn those songs by slowly building up complexity. I think the course has generally made me more comfortable learning songs, and has sparked an interest in music theory.
I recommend this course to beginners who want to improve!"
- - Romain T
"I first tried traditional piano lessons 20 years ago and became unmotivated with the endless scales and Disney songs. I gave up unsatisfied after almost two years. In just 4 months of playing using your course and videos, I am beginning to be able to do what I had originally dreamed about doing. Thanks again, I really appreciate it."
- - Jeff G
"I happened upon Piano with Nate while going down the Youtube rabbit-hole and was intrigued with his focus on chords. With my background in guitar, this approach was instantly relatable for me. Not only was I able to apply things I already knew from guitar but also many of the things Nate demonstrated like inversions, suspended chords, 7th chords, etc. improved my understanding of the guitar.
Piano with Nate has definitely jump started my keyboards skills and my ability to improvise and solo using different chord voicings, arpeggios, suspensions, etc. I would recommend this course to any guitar player wanting to add keyboards to their arsenal. I also think the course would be useful to anyone that wants to learn piano to accompany their singing."
- - Hans H