Quiescence Music The Quiescence Music site offers online piano lessons in the "New Age" style, from composer Edward Weiss.  The site is very nicely put together and the lessons are self-paced, and begin with a series of twelve core lessons.  When you sign up, you get an ID and a password to access the lesson area.   On the introductory page, there are very good suggestions about how to proceed; read the lesson, listen to the examples, then off to the keyboard.  There's a message board available too for comments and questions.  As mentioned, the emphasis here is not on learning scales and performing rote exercises, but more on learning improvisation skills and playing in one's own style. The first thing I did was to download and read the Workbook.  It's a PDF file, so you shouldn't have any problem with it, and there are instructions about how to save a copy on your computer.  I have to say, it's a very nice piece of work!  The idea is that you will learn the open chord positions in all twelve keys.  Open position chords are the foundation of this approach to piano playing.  You'll see a set of exercises for each key, with comments and directions by the author for each.  What a great difference from the "stern teacher with the ruler ready to slap your hands" approach.  I think it's the most natural way to approach the piano.  In fact, my eleven year old son is practicing right now and guess what he's doing?  He's improvising and humming along..and having a great time.  He's taking lessons from a teacher from the "somewhat-strict school" of teaching, but clearly the thing kids do when they sit down is improvise.  I like to do it myself - and this workbook gives you a great foundation to start from. The next item I looked at was the e-book called "The Music Inside You" which you can download after you sign up.  It is a collection of essays by Edward Weiss which, to sum up, will inspire you to get to your piano and start improvising.  If you hate practicing scales, read "The Secret to Successful Practicing"- it's great.  The site also includes a library of articles by Mr. Weiss.  Be sure to read "The Case Against Traditional Piano Lessons".   In addition, students who stay with the program for six months get a month of additional lessons at no charge, and gift subscriptions are available too.  Now, onto the lessons... I'll talk about a few of the twelve lessons in the set.  Lesson One is called "Oriental Sunrise" - if fact, I'm listening to Mr. Weiss "play" it right now - it's marvelous!  It really illustrates the points he makes about improvising.  There are only two chords involved.  There are very clear fingering diagrams in the lesson for the two chords and for the E-flat minor pentatonic scale - and it really is awesome what can be done with that bare minimum.  There's an excellent commentary in the lesson about how to approach what may be your first real attempt at improvisation.  If the rest of the house wasn't asleep, I'd be up on my Young-Chang doing this right now. Lesson 5, called Winter Scene continues the improvisational approach in the D Dorian key.  The lesson introduces the Dorian scale very clearly with a diagram.  Again, sound samples are provided to give you the feeling for the scale and the chords involved.  The "Winter Scene" performed by Mr. Weiss is, as he says, an example to inspire you (and me) to produce our own "version", with the techniques he shows us.  The lesson also introduces the "ostinato" pattern.  An ostinato is a figure or musical sentence that repeats continuously - the English translation is "obstinate".  (I'll freely admit I looked that up!).  Once you listen it will be perfectly clear. Lesson 12 is called Coral Reef, and may be my favorite so far.  The point here is learning to play "jump" chords up the keyboard to create that "flowing" sound that good pianists have.  The two chords are A minor and F major - the fingering diagrams and the sound samples make it very easy to understand, and after a few minutes of familiarization, you shouldn't have any technical trouble at all.  To sum up, my biggest problem with reading these lessons and writing a little bit about them was frequently jumping up and trying them at my piano!  I couldn't resist.  I personally like this approach a lot, and have tried to learn how to do these kinds of improvisations on my own - but not too successfully.  These short, concise lessons are a gold mine of examples.  I am going to have a lot fun with this material.  I think you will too.  By the way, there are many more lessons available in the Lesson Archive on the site, covering everything from the Ostinato technique to how to compose.  Take a look  - click here.  The lessons are highly recommended.