About ‘Piano With Kent’

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ABOUT ‘PIANO WITH KENT’

Kent Smith, Founder of Piano With Kent
Kent Smith, Founder of ‘Piano With Kent’

Howdy!

Welcome to Piano With Kent!

This website, pianowithkent.com, is a video and text-based free educational site.  We have no 3rd-party ads. Our site offers piano, keyboard and music theory lessons, articles, courses, course-based sheet music, and more. A lifelong musician and teacher, Kent’s video and text-based online lessons and online courses have been viewed and purchased worldwide since about 2010.

NOW OFFERING FREE VIDEO COURSES WITH ME (ON THIS SITE)

UP AHEAD FROM KENT: Hey! I’m hard at work these days on a new PDF book of Blues Piano Sheet Music, a collection of 144 Blues Piano Solos & Ideas–every one of which is based directly on my free video class called ‘A Study in Blues Piano – Focusing on Twelve Licks.’  This is standard sheet music, plus chord symbols, PLUS: Each note is labeled with its musical letter-name (such as G, F#, Eb, C.) The format will be PDF.  Watch this space please!

I sell exclusive custom sheet music HERE

Piano with Kent’s intended audience is anyone who wants to enhance their playing of songs and pieces, acquire improvisation and composing skills, increase their general understanding of music, and learn lots of practical music theory. Our sheet music, with letter-notes included, is especially popular with people who have prior experience reading piano music, but who now require a detailed refresher — with this music serving as a complete, on-sheet reference — making things more readable, as regards which key should be played, for each printed note.

ABOUT KENT – FOUNDER OF PIANO WITH KENT

Kent Smith is a professional piano and drum instructor (occasionally teaching guitar as well), and an experienced professional keyboardist and drummer based in Southern California.

He holds a degree in music and piano performance from Fullerton College, graduating with high honors. He is a lifetime member of the Fullerton College top honors society, Alpha Gamma Sigma.

At age seven, Kent began formal lessons in drums. By age fourteen he was a part-time professional drummer in a popular Philadelphia-based R&B band (It’s Time).

During that same “Philadelphia period,” he started classical piano studies, and was hooked for life!

After graduating from college with a degree in piano performance and general music (including jazz, formal and commercial composition, and more percussion), he made his living as a pianist, keyboardist and sometime drummer, working in various bands (most notably the OC-based progressive rock band Champion), and also has done a good amount of keyboard work in various Orange County and LA recording studios.

Kent began a parallel career in software development in his early twenties.  Now, recently retired from his position as a technical architect at AT&T, he has returned to music full-time.

Kent has gained a wealth of professional experience through his decades of teaching, performing, composing, and studio work.

Hello from Kent!

Regarding that bio, I would like to thank my mom for writing it…just kidding!  But I seriously would like to thank both of my parents (now in heaven), for their unwavering support and encouragement of my music career (plus anything else I was passionate about, which is a lot to keep up with).  They were incredibly awesome parents and human beings. So, in that sense, they really did “write my bio.”

On the topic of gratitude, I’d like to mention my son here.  I don’t share details, or even vague or general info about him in my online stuff, for the protection of his privacy, obviously. But let me tell you, that guy is the true light and love of my life.

Welcome to my site, and thanks for being here!

Couple of quick notes about why all contemporary musicians should know about keyboards and basic theory

To start, as any college music major can tell you, the piano keyboard is within reach of your music theory professor or teacher at all times. That’s gotta tell you something, right?

And we all know how pretty much all school-based music instruction – at any grade level – relies on the piano like crazy.

Now check this: every music major, no matter what their primary instrument, is required to play and learn a good amount of piano. That’s virtually a universal requirement across college-level and/or professional-level music programs worldwide.  Check that out on the web, you’ll see what I mean.

POPULAR MUSIC, RECORDING and DIGITAL APPLICATIONS

Any digital studio engineer, professional beatmaker, modern composer, programmer, sequencer, record producer, you know, any of those cats, will tell you that they use that keyboard attached to the DAW or mixing board all the friggin time. Notice I said professional up there…feel me?

These examples are actually just the tip of a giant piano-shaped iceberg, but wait, it’s a good iceberg, I need a better metaphor. I’ll use that one for now, check back later?

Okay then!  Thanks for stopping in, please check things out — there’s a lot of FREE content in my lessons blog.

 

Piano with Kent
Linus the Jazz Cat