The Ridley Academy

thepianoplayer416

Anybody signed up with Stephen Ridley's piano course?

Stephen Ridley, the creator of Ridley Method criticized for being an expensive rip off besides being a scam to funnel money into the Church of Scientology.

iternabe

I dislike that Ad with a passion.

MandM

I saw the youtube ads but I remain skeptical. If one wants to learn piano by way of the chord-based approach, that's fine. Personally I think that learning both methods, traditional piano including sight-reading as well as chord-based approach/improvising are good to know, they are sort of complementing each other. It is just that there are more economical courses out there if one wanted to do the chord-based approach. For example, "Pianoforall" by Robin Hall on Udemy in my opinion offers value. So, the Ridley course is likely not for me.

thepianoplayer416

MandM Several issues with Stephen Ridley:

He claims to be a concert pianist. By definition the focus is on Classical music which he plays 0.
Hundreds of Pop songs share the same 4 chords. In the ads he's just playing chords to accompany singing like many guitar players would do. Piano players would also play the melody with the RH instead of just chords.
When it come to chords, many Pop songs have the same chord progressions but not the same chords because the melody can be in different keys. For example: John Lennon "Imagine" is in C, Abba "Dancing Queen" is in A, Simon & Garfunkel "Sound of Silence" is in Dm. Even with the same chord progressions, the chords would be different.
The free introductory lesson is just a quick demo for a few minutes to get people interested so that they'd pay for the full course over $1000. What you actually learn isn't worth the money and much of the money is for supporting the Church of Scientology.

Many people want a fast way to learn piano than years of music lessons. A few decades ago I met Scott Houston from the US before he produced a learning series on PBS "Scott the Piano Guy" and later "Piano in a Flash". In the beginning he tended to demonize traditional teaching methods & Classical music as being too difficult for students and resulted in many quitting. Stephen Ridley also focuses on Pop songs instead of Mozart, Beethoven & Tchaikovsky.

MandM

thepianoplayer416

Yeah, in Stephen Ridley's ads, I saw chord based playing, I did not see classical music there, but I also have not looked closely. Regarding a way to learn piano fast, I note that even the chord based approach requires time to learn, e.g., as you mentioned the chords in the chord sequence change depending on which key one wants to play the song in. And then there are also the chord inversions and 7th chords to be learned as well as rhythms.

From Scott Houston, I have two lead sheet books in the key of C. Those helped me initially with chord-based playing. I later progressed to playing from regular "fake" books in varying keys. There is also a smaller book from Scott Houston where he explains the method, but as you mentioned there is too much against traditional teaching in there, so I put that away. All the best.

Simonb

I agree with the first critical video. He is really annoying, and regardless of whether the money goes into Scientology, I just don't believe the hype. Here is a 1hr 37min video of him:
where as far as I can tell (I couldn't face watching all of it) all he does is promote himself, look smarmy, and self-satisfied with his own playing, but gives you no real clue as to how or what he's going to teach. This video is advertised as a lesson. It may be a warning!

I gather from reading other comments that his system is in some way based on learning chords. Well, I taught myself to play from chords many decades ago, and it took me years of hard work to get to where I wanted to be, and certainly more than 5mins a day or whatever he claims. Not that I'm claiming to be a better Pianist than him, I'm sure he'd wipe the floor with me. But I can read chord charts, straight off the page, and translate them instantly to my fingers and play all inversions of triads, all 7ths minor and major, most 9ths, 11ths, 13ths, diminished, half diminished (-7-5) etc etc in nearly all keys in both hands.

In the video above he is scathing about learning from sheet music, traditional Piano lessons, in fact almost anything that isn't his system (whatever that is). The fact that the traditional system has been around for hundreds of years and produced so many great musicians doesn't seem to worry him a bit. It's certainly not my experience. My last 2 years of classical lessons have improved my playing hugely.

At the end of the above video he starts talking about the huge discount he's giving away $8000 or something. How much does the course actually cost, if he's discounting that much??

My summary would be no no NO NO NOO NOOO.

Cheers

iternabe

I stopped at "you can learn 100 songs in 2 days!" because my scam alert went off right there. Anyone who claims to have found a dramatic shortcut for something that's well-established to require a lot of hard work is very suspicious to me. They are preying on people's unrealistic expectations. I did not even bother to look any further into Stephen Ridley's videos because I am quite sure it'll be a waste of my time.

I am at learning piano for almost a year now, averaging 2 hours of practice per day. And I don't think I have learned 100 songs!

judanne

I have his you tube ads blocked. You can easily do it without paying premium. I don't know why he thinks that frenetic approach is appealing, but given the number of ads I do wonder how many have been sucked in.

Nightowl

Here's another video which debunks Ridley's claims:

Apparently the course costs around $3,000. That would pay for a lot of piano lessons/method books. I feel sorry for anyone gullible enough to waste their money on this dubious "course".

thepianoplayer416

Do a Google search on Stephen Ridley and this comes up:
Stephen Ridley is a British pianist and artist. He is the founder of Ridley Academy, an online education platform that teaches people how to master playing the piano without traditional musical theory and terminology. Ridley gained attention for his unique way of playing the piano and singing.

Some of the ads show S Ridley performs in front of an audience at a high level. Can't say the same for students who used the Ridley Method. Traditional piano lessons you rarely pay a teacher thousands of dollars upfront. It's usually pay as you go. It's very questionable that the majority of the money he collected would be going to the Church of Scientology. Otherwise wouldn't pay over $1000 to a teacher who is an average pianist with questionable credentials.

The gimmick of the course is that you can learn Pop songs by learning just 4 chords. Pop songs can be in a major or minor key and they are not all in the same key. A song like Simon & Garfunkel "Sound of Silence" you can play it with 4 chords (Bb, C, Dm, F), not the same 4 chords in the Ridley ads. The first thing a good learnin method need to teach is good posture: how to sit properly at the piano and proper hands position before the "4" chords.

Traditional lessons with the emphasis on Classical music can turn a lot of people away. A while ago met Scott Houston who emphasized Classical music as being too difficult for adult learners so the focus should be on playing Pop music off lead sheets. At least Scott Houston has enough learning materials from his TV series online that a learner would't need to spend thousands of dollars before getting even 5 minutes of instructions.

An article debunking the Ridley Method:
[https://pianoers.com/stephen-ridley/](https://)