Inside the fun, accessible method helping piano students win competitions | 60 Minutes
In a Nutshell
Payam Qasqadeh's Piom method teaches piano starting with numbers and letters on keys instead of sheet music, enabling students to play enjoyable songs immediately. This approach produces 96% diploma completion in four years versus the traditional 1-2% over twelve years, while also teaching original composition from young ages. The method has expanded nationally with investor backing, including Hans Zimmer, and dominates student composition competitions with students winning four of 14 national medals from just 41 submissions.
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It's a fairly safe bet that most kids taking piano lessons don't like them. That was certainly my experience. I took piano from age 5 to 12 before quitting in frustration. The scales and sheet music and strict teacher just got the best of me. Now, along comes a piano teacher named Payam Qasqadeh. The 32-year-old son of Iranian immigrants says he's come up with a new method of teaching that has students loving their piano lessons.
Piano's not supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be strict, it's supposed to be stressful, it's supposed to be like this very intense instrument you're learning. And we're like, why? Like why can't it be fun? Why can't we actually enjoy the songs we're learning? Our students don't just learn piano, they love piano, and that's one of the biggest keys to it.
In nearly every room of a converted home in the Seattle suburb of Bothell, Washington, Payam and his team of young teachers are playing piano. All of the teachers, all former students of his, are giving piano lessons and having fun. Students are charged between $75 and $100 per lesson and range from pre-school beginners to high school talents.
In piano we have this thing called the diploma, which is sort of like the black belt of the musical world. Traditionally about one to two percent of students reach diploma level, and it takes them about twelve years. In our school, ninety-six percent reached it, and it takes them about four years.
I agree and disagree. Of course nobody will become phenomenal at anything unless they're good. They actually put in the time and energy. But when you actually enjoy what you're doing, you don't realize that you're putting in the time for that. So they love it first. They love it first.
The Piom Method begins not with sheet music, but with ABCs and one, two, threes, and with actually writing numbers on piano keys. This is a song I would teach my three-year-old student that would come into class. One day, and we understand this is one, this is five. They're not reading notes. They're not even sometimes looking at sheet music. We're playing a game and it's fun for them because they'll go, one, two, three. And then I'll say, good job. Let's go one, one, two, five. And then they'll think and they'll go. And what they're doing is building this coordination. And using tools they already know, numbers and letters to learn a new language, the language of music.
For example, I really want to learn Chinese. If somebody put a book in front of me that was in Chinese, my brain would just lock up. And I have no idea what I'm doing. But if they taught me using a language I know, which is ABCs and one, two, threes, it would make sense. I'd be like, oh, I learned it. And then I'm just mapping it out.
Just as students of Chinese eventually learn Chinese characters, Piom students do shift to sheet music as they move through the 18 levels of his curriculum. This is our level two. This is our level 13. This would take about a year and a half to two years for students. And during all that time, you're learning songs that you actually enjoy.
Hans Zimmer has written the musical scores for more than 150 films. He's been nominated for 12 Oscars and won two, including for his score for The Lion King. But before he was a renowned composer and performer, he was a frustrated music student. You had an unconventional music education. I had an unconventional education, to say the least. Eight schools asked me to leave. I left with pleasure.
Is that the playfulness, the unconventionality of the education, is that what drew you to Piom and his method? Yes, absolutely. I mean, you know, it's exactly what I wish I could have had.
Most of Piom's students don't aspire to be concert pianists. And his playfulness is the result of his experience. His playful approach seems to have them loving their lessons. But what really sets him apart is that he's also teaching them to compose their own original songs at very young ages. Dilara is just 12. This is your third composition you've written? Yeah. This is your composition? Yeah. Oh, that's excellent.
Piom wrote this, his first original song, when he was nine years old, as a gift for his newborn sister. At age 11, he entered a different original composition into an arts competition, sponsored by the National PTA. The first composition competition I ever entered was the PTA Reflections Program, and I won.
So, you have students now. Yes, many. Who perform and write for this very same competition. Exactly. How have they done? Phenomenal. The best I ever did in the competition was win second place at state. And I thought that was the biggest achievement in the world. In 2024, we submitted 41 of our students to compete in the Reflections competition. There was 300,000 nationwide. So, we made up a very, very small portion of them. But we won 13 out of 15 district winners. We won five out of five Washington state championships. District first place winners. And then those five students went on to compete nationally, and four of them won four of the 14 national medals that were awarded.
Even when they're learning other people's compositions, Payam's students are encouraged to play around with tempo and style and mood. That is not how I learn piano at all. Not how I learned it either. There's a certain way to do it. You better do it that way. Exactly. Yeah. That's what we're trying to change about the musical world.
On day one, I said, I want to help scale this thing. Hadi Partovi met Payam when his then 12-year-old son Darius enrolled in piano lessons. Partovi is the co-founder and CEO of Code.org, a nonprofit that has a free online platform that millions of teachers have used to teach the basics of computer coding.
There's a lot of parallels between Payam Music and Code.org. One is we don't teach coding with ones and zeros or, you know, angle brackets and semicolons. We teach it with blocks and dragging and dropping to make it easier. Similarly, Payam Music teaches music starting with ABCs and 123s before you learn the code of how music is written.
So Hadi Partovi is now CEO of Payam Music. With the goal of taking this tiny school, now with just a few hundred students, national. So the plan is to open Payam schools all across the country? That's correct.
Partovi has raised money to fund the expansion from an impressive list of investors, including film composer Hans Zimmer. What made you decide to not just recognize Payam's music, his method and what he's doing, but to actually invest in it? To this day, I just remember these piano lessons as being horrible. And here's a man who figured out a way of giving children this opportunity to have absolute happiness, you know, to love music and love themselves.
Zimmer visited Payam's first new location in Santa Monica, California, and listened to star pupils play their compositions, including Hadi Partovi's son, Darius, now 19. I'd love to hear the piece slightly slower. Just breathe with it more.
With my son, I didn't even realize that he was writing music until one day. I was like, oh, whose piece are you playing? And he was like, I'm just making it up as I go. And I was like, what?
Do you have to or how do you convince the music establishment, music school instructors, that what you've got here is something special? Over time, we'll be able to convince the music establishment that this new way of teaching is better. But right now, we just need to convince parents. And the easiest way to convince parents is when they watch their son or daughter fall in love with music.
Best decision I made. The best decision you made? The best decision I made. Yes. Definitely. Sharsad Salastani's daughter, Ailee, is nine. Sashwati Sanyal's daughter, Anya, is 15. And Julia Ying's son, Jonathan, is away at college after years of lessons at Payam Music. It is life-changing for Jonathan. In what way? In the way that learning can be fun. So I see my daughter, Anya, to be more confident. And you feel good about yourself. So that is really different about this school. So they're all having fun. But they're learning. But they're learning. They want to work hard at the piano? Mm-hmm. It's contagious.
So to the skeptics, you say? Try it once, and you'll understand. I'm doing great. We couldn't resist a piano lesson 50 years after my last one. Back up here? Exactly. Perfect. Perfect. And then, last one. You did it. That was it. Finished level two. Amazing. How about that? Yeah. Improvising the classics. It's long, but you have a different feeling.
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