About me

Hi, I'm Shawn Cheek, the creator of webpianoteacher.com and owner of the Shawn Cheek School Of Music in Robinson, TX. At that time I'm writing this I am 38 years old, have played the piano for 30 years, and have taught piano lessons for over 21 years. Music has been a part of my life since I was born, and I can't imagine what life would be like if my mom hadn't signed me up for lessons when I was in second grade. To this day I hum constantly, and there is always a melody running through my head on a sub conscious level. My parents and brother used to shush me constantly for humming too loudly when I was a kid. Today I get shushed by my kids. My wife is a little more subtle, though. She just puts on some other music and turns it up! You might think that the constant music and melody in my head would drive me crazy, but I don't even notice it. On my mother's side of the family there runs a tremendous music talent. My aunts and uncles all sing and play multiple instruments by ear. Never a formal lesson, they just taught themselves. My biological father was very talented artistically I am told, by that's all I know. My mom decided when I was eight years old that she wanted me to be able to play the piano in church. So, she bought a decent upright piano and started playing some old gospel tunes that her brothers had taught her when she young. Immediately I became fascinated. All of the pitches she played became familiar to me, and I began to recognize them and distinguish them one from another even when I wasn't watching her play. Though I had never taken a lesson and didn't know the note names, I gained 88 new friends that day that would be with me for life. Years later I would be told this was a special gift called perfect pitch, but at the time I had know idea it was anything special and thought that everyone had this ability! Virginia Goebel was my first and most influential teacher. She fit perfectly the stereotypical elderly lady piano teacher who lives down the street! The most important thing she instilled in me was to be expressive when I played. Put yourself into everything that you play. Make it your own. This was great stuff for me as a tender eight year old, painfully shy and a spot light dodger. It was the one thing I could do in front of people and not be embarrassed and red-faced. As long as I was at the piano, I had all the confidence in the world. Mrs. Goebel would also let me borrow her extensive collection of LP records by famous concert pianists which I checked out regularly. Now there's a medium that I miss, records. I spent hours and hours leaning against the speakers of my dad's hi-fi listening to Van Cliburn's performance of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto no. 2. My ear developed very quickly, I memorized everything that I practiced, and played everything as fast as my fingers could fly! My sight reading was horrible and would continue to be horrible for many years after. However, I was obsessive compulsive when it came to a new piano piece, and I would work work work until I could memorize and then perform. This mistake in teaching that dear sweet Mrs. Goebel made, allowing me to skip over all the intermediate material and jump right into Beethoven, would cause me to struggle with my note reading all the way through college. The Lord works in mysterious ways, however. Learning how to help people who are 'reading challenged' became my hobby, and eventually I made a career out of it. webpianoteacher.com is merely an online version of the method I used for teaching my own students who just couldn't read music and were going to quit lessons because of it! Because I've been there, it helps me to help you. Well, maybe I'll write more later, but this is a start for my first blog post. Please leave comments and hit the like button for me if you don't mind! Until next time, Shawn Cheek