The Volz Method is built on the idea that kids learn music in four different ways, and a great piano teacher should be ready to meet them in any of them.
Here's what each pillar actually looks like inside a lesson, and how we decide which one to lean into for each student.
1. Reading
This is the traditional one. Sheet music. Treble clef and bass clef. Counting rhythm out loud. Working through method-book exercises that get progressively harder.
Reading is taught to every Volz Method student because it's the universal language of Western music — once you can read music, you can play any piece ever written. We're not skeptics of reading, we're skeptics of only reading.
For students who naturally love structure, patterns, and instructions, we lean in heavily here. They typically progress fastest when given proper sheet music, clear assignments, and a steady ladder of harder pieces.
2. Composing
Some kids don't want to play other people's music — they want to make their own. For these students, we teach not just composition exercises but the theory underneath: chord progressions, song forms, the patterns that make a melody feel resolved or unresolved, the relationships between keys.
This is one of the most rewarding pillars to teach. Students who compose develop a deeper understanding of music than students who only play it. And honestly — some of the original pieces our young students bring to lessons are remarkable.
3. Hearing
Playing by ear isn't a fallback for students who can't read. It's a real, learnable, professional skill. The pianist on the worship team at your church, the jazz pianist at the lounge, the studio musician who can replay a song after one listen — they're all using ear training.
For students who naturally pick songs out by ear, traditional teachers often see a problem to be corrected. We see a head start. We teach intervals, chord recognition, and the theory that makes ear-playing reliable. These students often end up the most musically versatile of any in the program.
4. Arranging
Take an existing song. Change the rhythm. Move it to a different key. Turn the melody into a chord progression. Simplify it for a beginner — or make it harder. Reharmonize it.
Arranging is the engine that lets you take any piece of music and bend it to fit you, your skill level, your style. Students drawn to arranging tend to think about music structurally — they like to understand what's holding a song together so they can take it apart.
How we decide which pillar to lean into
Every Volz Method teacher trains for three months in this method before they ever teach a lesson. A big part of that training is learning to read a student in the first few weeks: what energizes them, what bores them, what makes them ask questions, what they do with the piano when no one's telling them what to play.
From there, we adapt. A reading-strong kid still gets some composition. A composition-strong kid still learns to read. But the proportion shifts to match the student.
Want to see which pillar fits your child?
Schedule a free 15-minute call — we'll ask a few questions about how your child engages with music and give you an honest read. Lessons are $29–$52 per half hour, in-home, anywhere in Utah or Idaho.
Or read more about the Volz Method itself.