“Payam Method” hits the suitable notice with piano college students, making music training enjoyable and accessible for teenagers

Payam Khastkhodaei thought it was the most important achievement on the earth when he positioned second in a state-level piano competitors. Then his college students began sweeping competitions throughout the United States. 

The 32-year-old son of Iranian immigrants has give you a brand new technique of educating that has college students loving their piano classes and acting at excessive ranges. Khastkhodaei says his college students have greater success charges and are studying extra shortly than college students studying piano through conventional strategies. 

“Our students don’t just learn piano, they love piano,” Khastkhodaei mentioned. “And that’s one of the biggest keys to it.”

What units Payam’s piano educating strategies aside?

In practically each room of a transformed dwelling within the Seattle suburb of Bothell, Washington, Khastkhodaei and his workforce of younger academics — all former college students of his — are giving piano classes, and having enjoyable. Students are charged from $75 to $100 per lesson, and vary from preschool inexperienced persons to highschool skills.

“In piano we have this thing called the diploma, which is sort of like the black belt of the musical world,” Khastkhodaei mentioned. “Traditionally, about 1-2% of students reach diploma level, and it takes them about 12 years. In our school, 96% reach it and it takes them about four years.”

The “Payam Method” begins not with sheet music, however with ABCs and 123s, and with really writing numbers on piano keys.

“They’re not reading notes. They’re not even sometimes looking at sheet music. We’re playing a game. And it’s fun for them,” Khastkhodaei mentioned. 

Students are proven numbers to play, not notes.

“What they’re doing is building this coordination,” Khastkhodaei mentioned.

Students finally shift to sheet music as they transfer by way of the 18 ranges of the curriculum and, all of the whereas, they’re studying to play — and write — songs they take pleasure in.

Most of Khastkhodaei’s college students do not aspire to be live performance pianists, however his playful strategy appears to have them loving their classes. What actually units him aside is that he is additionally educating his college students to compose authentic songs at very younger ages. Delara Rahmatian, 12, not too long ago confirmed off her third-ever composition. 

Even after they’re studying different individuals’s compositions, Khastkhodaei’s college students are inspired to mess around with tempo, model and temper.

“Try it once and you’ll understand,” Khastkhodaei mentioned he tells any skeptics.

Bringing the “Payam Method” to college students throughout the U.S.

The Payam Method is spreading thanks, partly, to Hadi Partovi, the daddy of certainly one of Khastkhodaei’s college students and the co-founder and CEO of code.org. Partovi sees numerous parallels between his platform, which has been used to show coding to lots of of hundreds of thousands of scholars, and the Payam Method.  

“One is, we don’t teach coding with ones and zeros or, you know, angle brackets and semicolons. We teach it with blocks and dragging and dropping to make it easier,” Partovi mentioned. “Similarly, Payam Music teaches music starting with ABCs and 123s before you learn the code of how music is written.”

Partovi is now CEO of Payam Music, with the purpose of taking the tiny college, now with just some hundred college students, nationwide. 

Partovi’s son, Darius, started classes with Payam Music seven years in the past. Partovi says he knew from day 1 of his son’s classes that he needed to assist scale up Khastkhodaei’s operations. The plan is to have colleges throughout the nation, every with 5 to seven music rooms to have the ability to assist round 150 college students. 

“It’ll take us about 100 schools to get to 10,000 students,” Partovi mentioned. “The question is, how quickly can we get there?”

He’s raised cash to fund the growth from a powerful listing of buyers, together with Hans Zimmer, the Oscar-winning composer behind the musical scores for greater than 150 movies. Before he turned a famend composer, Zimmer was a annoyed music pupil who was kicked out of eight music colleges. 

“To this day, I just remember these piano lessons as being horrible. And here’s a man who figured out a way of giving children this opportunity to have absolute happiness, you know? To love music and love themselves,” Zimmer mentioned. 

The composer mentioned he is drawn to the playfulness in Khastkhodaei’s technique. 

“It’s exactly what I wish I could’ve had,” he mentioned.

Zimmer visited Khastkhodaei’s first new location, in Santa Monica, California, and listened to star pupils play their compositions, together with one by Partovi’s son, who now writes his personal music.

“Over time, we’ll be able to convince the music establishment that this new way of teaching is better,” Partovi mentioned. “But right now, we just need to convince parents. And the easiest way to convince parents is when they watch their son or daughter fall in love with music.”

The “Payam Method” payoff

Khastkhodaei’s teachings are producing award-winning pianists. In 2024, 41 of his college students submitted authentic compositions to the National PTA’s Reflections program. Nationwide, round 300,000 college students have been competing, so his college students made up only a small fraction of the members. 

“But we won 13 out of 15 district winners, we won five out of five Washington state first-place winners. And then those five students went on to compete nationally and four of them won four of the 14 national medals that were awarded,” Khastkhodaei mentioned. 

Parents say the teachings have been life-changing for his or her youngsters, exhibiting them studying may be enjoyable.

“The best decision I made,” mother Shahrzad Salestani mentioned. 

Mom Saswati Sanyal mentioned her 15-year-old daughter Aaniya has gained confidence from the teachings. 

“And you feel good about yourself,” Sanyal mentioned. “So that is really different about this school.”

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