Agnes Oyelaran
thirty years of teaching piano to adults who were told as children they weren't musical
$42/hour , set by Agnes Oyelaran.
My mother taught piano in Ibadan and I swore I never would, then a neighbour in Peckham asked me to teach her daughter in 1995 and I never stopped. Children first, then more and more grown-ups, until adults became most of my studio.
I was not always good at this. Around 2003 I made a grown man cry over a Clementi sonatina, correcting every bar the way my old conservatory teachers corrected me, and he never came back. I think about him often. He taught me more than my diploma did.
Now a lesson with me is slow on purpose. We work on perhaps eight bars. We talk about what your hands are afraid of. And you will play something you love within a month, even if we simplify it shamelessly, because that is what keeps people at the instrument in month seven.
More background
I know the classical repertoire from beginner to about grade 8 ABRSM, plus hymns, highlife, and enough pop arranging to keep things joyful. Technique for older hands, arthritis-friendly fingering, sight-reading from zero, practice habits for people with jobs and children.
I am best for adult beginners and returners, especially anyone carrying old shame from a harsh childhood teacher. I am not the teacher for you if you want conservatory audition prep, jazz improvisation, or quick results without practising; twenty minutes a day, five days a week, that is my one firm rule and I do check.
Lessons online or at my home studio in south London, weekday afternoons and Saturday mornings, UK time. I do not teach in August, I go to Lagos to see my sisters. Between lessons you send me one short recording a week, even a bad one. I reply with a voice note, because tone matters more than text.