Trish Cummings
Specialist musicianship and piano teacher in South East London
I help children develop the ability to hear, understand and create music, from their earliest musical experiences through to confident piano learning.
My teaching combines musical rigour with warmth, playfulness and close attention to how each child learns. I want children to become thoughtful, imaginative musicians who can make musical decisions independently.
How I teach
My teaching draws principally on Edwin Gordon’s Music Learning Theory and Kodály-informed musicianship, alongside Penelope Roskell’s approach to healthy, coordinated piano technique.
Children learn through listening, singing, movement, rhythmic and tonal pattern work, improvisation and purposeful exploration at the piano. Musical understanding is established aurally before notation is introduced, so that the symbols children eventually read represent music they can already hear and comprehend.
I take children’s musical thinking seriously. Lessons give them space to experiment, predict, compare, create and explain what they hear. Mistakes and uncertainty are treated as a natural part of learning, while the musical expectations remain ambitious.
Training and professional work
- BMus from Goldsmiths, University of London
- Gordon Institute for Music Learning PDLC Level 1 in Piano
- Gordon Institute for Music Learning PDLC Level 1 in Early Childhood Music
- Musicianship teaching at Guildhall
- Presentation for Roskell Academy teachers on integrating Music Learning Theory with Essential Piano Technique Primer A
- Co-presenter on Music Learning Theory for The Curious Piano Teachers
I continue to study, take piano lessons and refine my teaching through observation, recording and reflective analysis. I believe that serious teachers remain learners throughout their professional lives.
My musical story
I have been fascinated by music for as long as I can remember. I began asking for piano lessons at three and finally started at seven, later studying flute and classical guitar and singing and playing in school ensembles. A music degree followed, before I embarked on a corporate career.
After the birth of my second child, I began teaching baby signing. I have continued doing so since 2004, developing extensive experience of how babies, young children and families communicate and learn. As my own children grew, I returned increasingly to music study and began building the teaching practice I have today.
My own childhood experience matters to my teaching. I loved music deeply, even when I did not always love practising or the way music was presented to me. That has made me determined to help children encounter musical structure, expression and creativity as meaningful experiences rather than disconnected instructions.
What I want for my students
My purpose is not simply to teach children to reproduce pieces at the piano. I want them to hear music internally, understand how it works, create their own music and develop the independence to continue without me.
I want my students to leave able to hear, understand, create and love music more deeply – and knowing that their musical minds were taken seriously.
Musicianship with Trish 