Think in Music · Burlingame, California
Don't just play the notes. Understand the music.
Private piano lessons on the Peninsula, taught one-on-one in your home, with a program built around you. Learn to play, to understand harmony, and to improvise, whatever your starting point.
Now enrolling 15 founding students · Burlingame, Hillsborough, San Mateo, Millbrae
Most piano lessons teach you to repeat a page.
Take the page away, and the music is gone.
Maybe you took lessons as a kid and can't play anything without sheet music. Maybe an app taught you which keys to press, but never why. Or maybe you want your child to learn music as a language, not as a memory exercise.
There is another way to learn: the way musicians actually think.
The Think in Music Method
One language behind every genre
A pop song, a Mozart sonata and a jazz standard are built from the same handful of ideas. Once you can hear and play those ideas, music stops being a list of pieces to memorize and becomes a system you understand.
So we work with real music from every genre, including the songs you bring. You play it, we uncover how it's built, and then you use the same building blocks to make something of your own.
How it works
- 01
Hear it.
Learn the few chords behind hundreds of songs, and play your first pieces with them.
- 02
Understand it.
We take music you love and see how it works. The same patterns show up in pop, classical and jazz.
- 03
Make it yours.
Improvise over those chords and create your own music.
We begin with a first lesson to see where you are and what you want to play. From there I build your path, step by step, at your pace. Where it leads: you sit at the piano with a chord chart, play it, improvise on it, and understand why it works.
Two ways of learning, every week
A private lesson at your home.
One-on-one, on your own piano or keyboard. Your pace, your music.
A small-group harmony class.
Online, with your fellow students. We take songs apart together, play for each other, and trade music. This is how harmony is taught in Italian conservatories: alongside your instrument, in a room full of people who love music.
The harmony class runs every week, from your first week. For children, it's optional.
Prefer to set your own goals?
Not everyone wants a program. If you'd like to work on a specific piece, prepare for an exam, get back to the piano after years away, or take a lesson now and then, I offer private lessons tailored to you, at your home.
Weekly or occasional. No long-term commitment.
Meet your teacher
Ado Di Tomasso
I'm Ado Di Tomasso. I trained for ten years at Conservatorio Luisa D'Annunzio in Italy under Maestro Paolo De Ninis, a pianist and teacher of piano, musical analysis and interpretation, and graduated at 18 with highest honors. My diploma comes from Italy's traditional conservatory system and is a master's-level qualification.
I also hold a master's degree in engineering from Politecnico di Milano, one of Italy's leading technical universities, and have played in bands across genres for ten years. That's why I teach music the way I do: as a system you can understand, not a page you memorize.
15 founding students
I recently moved to Burlingame, and I'm opening my studio here with a founding group of 15 students. The method is new; the training behind it is not.
Founding students get my full attention, a program shaped around them, a say in the music we work on, and their tuition rate locked for the first year.
Tuition
The Think in Music Program
$500/ month
Four 60-minute private lessons at your home, plus the weekly group harmony class.
Private Lessons, tailored to your goals
$480/ month
Four 60-minute private lessons at your home, built around what you want to achieve.
Single lesson
$135
One 60-minute lesson at your home, whenever you need it.
No contracts. Pay monthly, stop anytime. Lessons cancelled with 24 hours' notice are rescheduled.
Questions
- Do I need a piano?
- Yes: an acoustic piano or a digital piano with 88 weighted keys. If you don't have one yet, I'll help you choose.
- I'm a complete beginner. Is this for me?
- Yes. Your program starts wherever you are, including from zero.
- I already play. Will I be bored?
- No. If you read music but can't improvise or play by ear, this is exactly the missing piece.
- Is there a minimum commitment?
- No. You pay month by month and can stop anytime.
- Do you prepare students for exams?
- Yes. My own training was a ten-year classical conservatory path, and I'm glad to prepare students for exams and auditions as part of tailored lessons.
- What ages do you teach?
- Children from age 8, teens and adults.
- How long does it take?
- It depends on where you start and how much you play between lessons. We set your goals together in the first lessons and review them as you go.
- Where do you teach?
- At your home, in Burlingame, Hillsborough, San Mateo and Millbrae.
Start with a free trial lesson
Thirty minutes, at your home, no commitment. You'll play something of your own before I leave.