Teaches in Southern California

From Chino Hills, California

Plays and Piano

About

Eric started making piano covers on YouTube in 2017. Growing up, he never had a formal music education except for a year of piano lessons where he learned the basics of do re mi, where middle C is on sheet music, and how sharp means a half step up and a flat means half step down. Armed with this rudimentary music knowledge, he set out to play classical and romantic music pieces from his favorite composers such as Chopin, and Rachmaninoff, and Debussy. Besides classical music, he has influences from easy listening artists such as Yanni and Yiruma. But the genre of music that really sparked Eric's passion for the hobby is K-pop, also known as Korean pop music, which uses very colorful chords and elaborate rhythms paired with dazzling visuals to immerse you in a wonderful audio and visual experience.

After getting into K-pop, Eric decided he wanted to play his own arrangements of his favorite songs because the sheet music he found on the internet was either too easy, had the chords wrong, or simply didn't line up with his vision. He learned how to use free sheet music software, MuseScore, to transcribe his favorite songs and write down his arrangements. He quickly found himself staying up at night and even occupying himself during work breaks to devoting himself toward this passion. It is by transcribing and creating piano covers of his favorite songs that Eric was able to teach himself music theory.

Today, Eric continues to make piano covers of his favorite songs from a wide variety of genres, such as anime, musicals, movie scores, and pop. What sets Eric's piano covers apart from others is how they sound almost like the original song, with the exact chords, rhythm, melody, and little details all included.

Eventually, Eric quit his job as an engineer and spent a year working on his hobby when he decided to get into teaching. Since Eric has always had an interest and background in math and science, he found out that teaching was also one of his passions, and one the most important things to him is showing how beautiful, fun, and easy that traditionally "boring" and "difficult" things like math, science, and music can be. He aims to communicate and spread this passion to all his students so they can become self-driven and motivated enthusiasts just like him. Eric's students tell him that because he is young and easy to talk and relate to, classes with him are always fun and engaging, and never feels like a chore. In fact, one of Eric's students told him that he learned more from Eric in one lesson than he ever did in 6 years of piano lessons as a kid!

No one likes to practice boring scales on the piano for hours on end. We all have our favorite songs we listen to and dream that we can play them on the piano, but we're not sure where to start. Eric will show you how to figure out the chords to your favorite songs, create your own arrangement, and play it on the piano!

You can find Eric's piano cover videos on YouTube (@EricLeePiano). He is excited to teach you how to play your favorite songs on the piano and create exciting videos to share with your family, friends, and fellow lovers of music.