About Rob Homan
Rob has played piano since the age of 5, starting with classical piano and later jazz piano, along with several rock, funk and fusion bands over the years. His foundation in teaching comes from his 20+ years of private classical piano and jazz piano lessons, his time participating in jazz ensembles in high school and college, and his keyboard work as a professional musician based in Seattle. Rob feels blessed with so much rich musical education where he grew up in Minnesota and constantly seeks to pass that knowledge and joy onto others.
After school at the University of Minnesota, Rob relocated to Seattle. There he stumbled on to a rich and vibrant scene of musicians and music educators. Rob is perhaps best known for his keyboard work in the Seattle-based national-touring band High Pulp, which went on to win the Earshot Jazz 'Golden Ear' Award for Alternative Jazz Band of the Year in 2019. He also performs with the local funk instrumental group Bad New Botanists, and his solo electronic/experimental project RobTheSoundBank (Rob can never resist a good pun).
Outside of music, Rob enjoys hiking, backpacking, raising his pet dog Towhee, juggling, math, science and computer programming, cooking a nice meal at home, and playing the occasional video game.
Rob understands that music means so many things to so many different people, which is part of what makes it exciting, diverse, and culturally valuable. So, as a teacher Rob looks to encourage and inspire every student in their private piano instruction. That could be learning the basics from a piano method book, learning classical piano pieces for any skill level, learning jazz piano and improvisation, learning synthesizers, learning music theory, composition and music production, or any combination thereof.
That being said, there are two important things that Rob hopes each and every student learns in their time studying the piano. Firstly, to learn the sense of satisfaction and accomplishment that can come from patience, persistence, setting goals and achieving long-term self-improvement, no matter the skill level or pacing. And secondly, that music is a creative endeavor and an art of self-expression. Whether or not it's music or another creative outlet down the road, he hopes every piano student will discover their way of experiencing that joy throughout their whole life.
