David Christie

Bellevue - Northwest Pianos - David Christie

David has been teaching for more than 40 years, has 8 years of college in music and has written some of the music books that he uses when teaching. He has degrees in both Classical Piano & Composition and in Jazz Piano Performance (Bachelor of Music). David is a composer of both classical piano music and small jazz ensemble music. He has students studying classical piano, modern classical piano, lead-sheet reading, blues piano, jazz piano, improvisation, music theory and composition. He teaches at Northwest Pianos in Bellevue and at his Bothell home studio.

His instruction protocol has been redesigned to develop good sight-readers (of piano music). Being able to sight-read music opens the door to all the piano literature up through your level. This means he uses four different groups of piano teaching method books & fun/good extra books, and though his students develop at individual rates, they all get solid, comfortable and confident rather quickly. His students also play many more pieces than the usual teacher’s student. He loans out most of the books his students use.

David teaches essentially all ages (5-70). A third of his students are children, a third are Teens, and a third are Adults.

He teaches beginning into advanced classical piano, including Beginning Adult Piano for which he has written a few books. This is with an emphasis on sight-reading.

David teaches: Music Theory, Improvisation, Composition (jazz & classical), Jazz Piano, lead-sheet reading, blues piano, and general Classical Piano (including beginning adult piano). This includes: chords, intervals, harmony, analysis, counterpoint, voicing, modal melodic development, motivic melodic development, mixed pentatonic melodic development, 4th stacks & quartal development, and theories for modern classical composition.

David has a composer of both classical piano music and small jazz ensemble music. He has students studying classical piano, modern classical piano, lead-sheet reading, blues piano, jazz piano, improvisation, music theory and composition. He has taught students who have gone on to study composition, jazz, and film scoring in college. He has spent part of his career performing – mostly his jazz trio.