Dear Mark,

This is Schim Schimmel. I'm the artist who ordered your course last week for overnight delivery. I'm leaving Wed. for Japan for two weeks of art shows, and was so happy to get your course the day after we spoke.

First of all, the videos are professionally done -- what a treat when so many teaching videos are obviously "homemade." Having taught private art classes myself for many years with a system much like your own, I so appreciate your solid yet inspiring method. You have struck the perfect balance between teaching solid music education at the keyboard while at the same time offering very doable music pieces and exercises that are musical and beautiful to play. I can't wait to get back home and really work these tapes. I'm almost finished with video two of Piano For Life, and will finish video three before I leave. It's going to be more than a little frustrating not to work with your tapes while I'm gone. Excellent job, Mark. Thank you for contributing your hard-won knowledge to all of us out here, for contributing so wonderfully to this planet with your life's work. Thank you so much for finally making the keyboard accessible. Will you, in fact, be coming out with future lessons? Put me on your list as a lifetime student."

It's been said that simplicity is the hallmark of true genius. Mark Almond certainly proves that point with his video tape series, Piano For Quitters and its 3 volume companion set, Piano For Life. He has created a brilliantly simple and elegant method of instruction that gives the piano student a clear understanding of the fundamental ideas of harmony, melody, chord structure and music theory, straight out of the box. The student can begin playing real music right from Lesson One.

This isn't just a case of someone building a better mouse trap. Mr. Almond's method of instruction has profound implications that go way beyond simply learning to play piano. It's a genuine paradigm shift in how we learn, understand, create and experience music itself. Perhaps my personal experience can help illustrate what I mean.

I've been playing acoustic finger-style guitar for nearly 40 years. In the past, I've made my living as a professional musician, and even though I no longer perform, I still play every day. I have a highly sophisticated ear and a solid understanding of how music works. Early in my career as a musician I discovered that the piano was a handy tool as an aid for composition. Whenever I got stuck, couldn't find a unique chord or a particular melodic line on the guitar, I could sit down at a keyboard and within a few minutes, using only one or two fingers, I could pick out exactly the sounds I was after. Somewhere along the line, I discovered a deep desire to learn to play piano.

I bought the Thompson books. I tried Suzuki. I tried every method and every teacher within a hundred miles of where I lived. Inevitably, by the third lesson I was ready to burn the piano and whack the teacher with a bamboo stick. For thirty years I tried everything I could think of, including trying to figure it out myself. I wanted to play piano so much it made my soul ache. Eventually, blaming myself and my own lack of comprehension, I fell into numb hopelessness about it. Even though I gave up, there has always remained a small, quiet tendril of longing somewhere deep inside me.

A couple years ago, a friend bought me a copy of Piano For Quitters. I didn't own a piano at the time, so the tape sat unwatched on a shelf with my old piano books. A few months ago I acquired an 1893 Chickering upright piano. Recently, while pawing through my old music books, I stumbled upon the Piano for Quitters video tape. I popped it into the VCR and for the next hour, sat there astonished. I rewound the tape back to Lesson One and started over. I watched the lesson a third time, got up, went to the piano and started to play. Did you get that? I sat down and started to PLAY!

By Lesson Five, I was able to build rich, fat, hauntingly beautiful chords and equally important, I understood what to do, how to do it and why. After thirty years of frustration, I got it. It wasn't me, it was the method that was flawed! No wonder half the musicians I know can't play anything without sheet music in front of them. Given the current state of music instruction, it's a miracle anyone learns to play anything at all.

As a guitarist, I have always been able to listen to anyone else play guitar and even if I don't have their particular technical skills, I can still visualize exactly what they are doing. From Django Reinhardt to Preston Reed, from Jimi Hendrix to Michael Hedges, I can close my eyes and feel in my hands what they are doing. I know it in my bones. Two days after my first lesson with Piano For Quitters I was standing at the sink washing dishes, listening to Joe Sample's CD, Sample This, humming along with one of my favorite tunes and suddenly, I stopped dead still, closed my eyes, and for the first time in my life, I could SEE what he was playing. I KNEW what he was doing, how his hands were moving, and what the chords were. I could feel it in my bones.

I immediately went on the web and ordered the 3 volume Piano For Life series and watched the videos all the way through. As of today, I have worked my way about halfway through them. These tapes are so comprehensive that I could spend the next 10 years watching them once a week and still find new nuggets of insight into chord structure and harmony every time I watch. Are you getting some idea about the value of the gift Mark Almond has given to me? I would pay any price to go back in time to when I was 10 years old and learn music this way from the beginning. My musical life would have been very different.

Ok, so I'm now a beginner on the piano. Yes, at the moment there is a huge gap between what I can hear and understand and what I can actually make my hands do. So what... The important thing is that I know how it works. I know what to do now. Music lives in my heart and soul and the rest is just practice. Because I have a new access to the fundamental ideas in music, it's simply a matter of binding muscle memory to the passionate will of my own original musical expression. If I can hear it inside, I'll be able to find it and play it. These videos have given me the tools to build a skill set and an understanding that will last a lifetime. Give me a couple years. I'll knock your socks off.

I'm going to make a prediction here. As Mark Almond's body of work spreads throughout the world, as more music teachers begin to incorporate his methodology into their instruction, as more students gain access to their own musical abilities and are able to have fun learning to play piano, we will see a new era of musical creativity. These four videos have created the potential for a musical renaissance the likes of which we haven't seen in centuries. Sooner or later, everyone will learn music this way. Essentially, what Mr. Almond has done is remove the arcane, mysterious complexity from the way we have learned music in the past. With his simple and direct method, he has given back to us our rightful connection to the real music inside of us. We are all musical beings and this is our birthright, to have complete access to our own internal creative abilities, and the freedom and joy of making music as we hear it.

Tell your friends. Tell your family. Tell your teachers. Think of that special friend in your life who has always wanted to play the piano and buy the tapes as a present. Buy them for yourself simply because you deserve the joy of making music in your own life. Pass it on. Mark Almond has changed everything. This is a really big deal.

But hey, don't take my word for it, see for yourself. How would you feel if this could happen for you too? What would it mean to your life if you could learn to play music, real music, the way you've always dreamed? Tell you what, you go ahead and try "Piano For Quitters" and "Piano For Life" practicing as instructed. If you fail to learn to play piano to your own satisfaction, I'll refund your money myself.