Ana Fiszman

Hello there! 

My name is Ana and I am a piano player from Buenos Aires, Argentina. After many years of private piano lessons, music schools and graduating and getting a diploma on piano performing from Escuela de Música Contemporánea (EMC) part of the Berklee International Network I decided to have the experience of studying abroad. This is how I ended up studying, and getting a bachelor, at the Rotterdam’s Conservatory CODARTS (University of the Arts) as a latin piano performer. As a colourful side note, I have also taken a couple years of singing and drums/percussion.

 I have played piano since I was 6 years old (so for 20 + years!) and, as I mentioned before, I have been through many types of learning, that is how I learned first hand that not every student learns the same and not every method of teaching works for everyone. I believe the classes should be first and foremost motivating to the student. For this the content has to be something that you as a student can relate to, and that it is useful for you! 

I have worked as a piano teacher for already ten years, taught at a kid’s orchestra, gave baby music lessons, accompany some choirs, perform live with my own projects and other’s projects, performed at circus’s shows…  When I perform with my own projects I mainly play Latin American music and Latin Jazz. What I love the most about performing music is to connect different cultures, and hopefully this will make different people connect to each other. In other projects, and as a teacher, I have also played Jazz, funk, pop, some classical… a little of everything!. 

As I mentioned previously I have ten years of experience given private lessons.  I teach to everyone, from kids to adults (preferably from 6 years old), and to all levels, from beginners to already advanced players. I like to adapt the song to the student needs and purpose. In the first lessons I like to get to know the student, what their interest is, what you would like to learn. And then we work together towards that.  I’ve had students who learned classical pieces and other who liked to sing along to pop’s songs, and I enjoy them all, so everything is welcome! If you are interested in singing for example we could learn the song you want to learn, adjust their key to your voice range, and practice some singing together. If you are interested in jazz we can work on improvising. We can work on reading classical pieces. Again, everything is welcome, as long as you are into it and enjoying it.

For children I work with 30 min long lessons. We use the Hal Leonard book series. These series start from the very beginning of music, and progressively increase. Therefore, there is no prior knowledge needed. Plus, we learn some side songs that they like, improvise and write our own songs. This makes the lessons fun and engaging, but also organised and didactic. 

If you have an idea that you would like to further develop, from a melody that you would like to play to a song that you want to arrange for a band I can help you. We can work together in your specific idea and in the process learn what is the way to approach the different challenges that come along. I don’t work with one specific established process, since creativity has no formula, and each person gets stimulated in different ways. But I can teach you on how to get harmony, reharmonize, make some lines for wind instruments, or write a bass line.

There are no requirements to start with composition lessons, with a little help every can compose!

I’ve had countless years of music theory and I always liked it. The most difficult part of theory is when you don’t connect it to your instrument, and it ends up being a big piece of complicated theory floating around with no context or real purpose. That is why I like to mix it with my piano lessons (I can also give the theory lessons separated from the piano lessons, I like to discuss that with each students in the beginning to see what they are interested in). 

Theory gives meaning and context to the things we play, it allows us understand the song, improvise on it, compose a new part, etc… 

If you are interested in a more traditional way of learning we can do dictations, sight reading and analysis of songs, for example.