From William S.
David Chang Music - Online and Brooklyn, NY
UPDATE 8/26/23
It's been nearly two months now since David has launched The Collective, a mastermind community with the first part of his massive course that has several great and incredibly detailed videos that have helped me with lots of game changing mindset stuff, not just limited to his unique methodology but just life in general! The other great thing is the community aspect where you can post anything you feel like (questions, practice, performance, etc.) where myself and others have received very high quality responses/feedback from David, his teachers, and even other students. There's much less waiting around if you need something answered and there's a lot of aspects of accountability available through other students who you can actively communicate with at any time and the platform itself. There are collaboration calls twice a week currently that span two hours at pretty convenient, alternating times, where you can show up if you want to and however long you want to, and use the call for basically anything like getting smaller questions answered, maybe a bit of coaching from David or others if necessary and especially just accountable practice time.
I would definitely recommend this to adults looking to learn or improve their skill as it is generally harder to have flexibility for traditional lessons and even for the strategic teams lessons that were previously offered and The Collective solves that completely while still offering higher level results with the flexibility of attaining value in many different avenues throughout the whole community!
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When I decided to take piano playing seriously, David's profile caught my attention immediately, not only due to being a top rated teacher, but because of the immense detail in his profile which made me know that he would take me seriously for wanting to get into a piano -playing profession, despite being that I had only played for less than a year at that point. He was happy to have a long interview call with me to allow me to explain my goals and reasoning for those goals, and for him to set what the expectations should be for the present and future, to which he was very honest and detailed about.
I was hesitant at first with the strategic team lessons , as I only had little experience with traditional piano pedagogy, but quickly learned why the format can be much more useful. It allows you to be held accountable to practice for the full time, allows you to perform for others, at times, to accelerate learning, and with David's expertise, turns you into your own teacher which is much more effective in learning for the short and long term, while still having that format to ask questions when they come up and get very detailed explanations.
With David's methods and teaching, I immediately learned everything that I was missing in my playing, even as a beginner. I was able to completely refine the one piece I had learned to give it a whole new meaning with deeper dynamics and solid timing. Another piece that I was just starting to learn, had very complex rhythms that I was able to break down and play correctly using David's unique methodologies, which gives me the ability to do the same in the future when encountering any difficult problems in sheet music. In just a few short months I was able to play both of those pieces completely and with decent musicality at Steinway Hall in New York City, which in itself is an amazing opportunity. I am now beginning to learn Chopin's First Ballade, allowed by David as my goal piece, which would normally be nothing but a far-fetched dream for someone like me given my limited experience, but with David's incredible skill as a pianist and teacher, I am much more confident in taking up a difficult piece and playing it to a high degree.
I am excited and looking forward to the future of learning with David, the opportunities that he will bring, and his creation of the Pianist Collective which I am confident in being a much more effective and unique alternative to traditional learning, and even his strategic teams.
