The particulars.

Children's lessons are thirty minutes, once a week, forty dollars. Adults get the full hour for seventy, because adults need the first twenty minutes to stop apologizing. I teach Tuesday through Saturday; after-school spots go first and are usually spoken for by September, so if you want one, write early.

You'll need something to practice on at home. It does not need to be good. A decent digital keyboard with weighted keys is completely fine to start, and when you're ready for the real thing I know every piano technician and half the estate sales in the county; nobody I've sent looking has ever overpaid.

Practicing: I ask for five days a week, in amounts so small they're hard to refuse. Ten honest minutes beats a guilty hour on Sunday. Parents, your only job is to never use practice as a punishment. That's the whole parenting manual.

Billing is by the month, first lesson of the month, check or anything your phone can do. Miss a lesson with a day's notice and we make it up; miss one because life happened suddenly, and we're humans about it. The first lesson is free for the trying, because you can't know from a letter whether we'll get along.

Come meet the piano. Call (555) 014-2204 or write [email protected], and if you're still deciding, the questions page handles the worries everyone has.

— R.