Birds Piano Academy Review

This is my updated for 2025 review on Bird’s Piano Academy, which is one of my absolute favorite online course options for learning how to play piano.  Why is it one of my favorites? 

• The content is AWESOME, it’s super effective, AND there is a ton of it
• These courses focus on teaching piano with a chord based approach, so you do NOT need to know how to read sheet music; and this is by FAR the fastest (and in my opinion the best) way to learn how to play piano, especially how to play modern music; and, if you DO want to learn how to read sheet music, Arthur does offer a separate course on learning to sight read quickly if you’re interested
• The lessons & practice exercises are REALLY well presented, well organized, and easy to follow and digest at your own pace
• There are achievable target goals throughout the courses to recognize your progress
• AND . . . the courses are NOT expensive, and are a massive value for money

So Bird’s Piano Academy offers a bunch of different courses, and I’ve done individual reviews on some of these already, which I’ll link to in the description below.   Now Bird’s just finished releasing a NEW course on Boogie Woogie piano, so I was originally planning on just reviewing that course, but then I thought that in my existing reviews, I’ve kind of . . . touched on the overall program but I’ve never made an overall review of Bird’s Piano Academy & ALL of their current offerings . . ., and I REALLY wanted to talk about the subscription model that’s also available, because I think it’s pretty cool.  So, I thought it would be better to go over the whole program and all the pricing options instead.  So?  Let’s check out Bird’s Piano Academy!

What Is Bird’s Piano Academy?

But unlike some online piano course instructors, Arthur actually has a TON of real world experience; he’s toured all over the UK as a session musician, having performed in places like Liverpool and Wembley arenas, and has toured with bands in Europe, the USA and elsewhere.  And something he mentions on his website, is something I want to highlight – and that is, his goal is to try his hardest to make his lessons engaging and fun, which is . . . what keeps students motivated to continue learning; and having completed multiple courses from Arthur, I can verify that he does a GREAT job of doing exactly that. 

Course Format

The format and user interface for all these courses are basically the same; the courses are video based lessons accessed through his website.   On the left side of your screen, you’ll find a course table of contents (which is broken up into distinct sections – these are your achievable goal targets); and your progress to date is clearly indicated there.  Then on the right you’ll have the actual video lesson (and if you’re planning to go on a holiday or something where you won’t have an internet connection; you can actually download the videos themselves which is super cool; a lot of other online courses won’t let you do that). 

And, in many lessons there will also be a pdf displayed below the video with additional information, chord charts etc that you can view on screen and you can also download that if you like.  So in the video, you’re going to see a clear overhead view of Arthur’s hands on the keys, along with a matching digital view of the keys that light up as he plays, just to make it super clear and easy to see what he’s doing.  And above the keyboards, there will most often also be some text, a chord chart, or other information relevant to the current lesson.  

So some general comments about the video lessons that I can make after having completed a LOT of them in multiple courses from Birds Piano Academy?   They are super clear, easy to follow, AND he goes at a nice & relaxed pace.  And, very few of his lessons are longer than 10 minutes, which is awesome, because that means you’re not being bombarded with TOO much information at once.  He demonstrates a very specific topic, so you can take your time to learn it, practice it, and digest it before you move on to the next lesson.   Now I’ve taken quite a few online courses, and believe me; actually LEARNING 10 topics in 10 concise SEPARATE 6 minute video lessons, works FAR better than trying to learn those 10 topics in one hour long lesson. 

Pricing

So as far as pricing goes, you have a couple of options.   

All Access Subscription

First option is to go the subscription route, which gives you access to ALL of Bird’s Piano Academy courses (so when new courses get added, they will automatically be included); and the subscription price is currently at only about $9USD per month which is crazy low; AND THAT price is if you choose to go month to month; you ALSO have the option of going year to year, which reduces the monthly cost to only $6.50 per month for access to ALL of Arthur’s courses!   Basically for less than the price of a fast food lunch . . . that really is a fantastic deal.    And, something important to note here, is that you can actually get 7 days free of charge with a new subscription so you can test drive ALL of the courses first if you want to.   And I should also note that there are a few extras that are included with the subscription option, that are NOT included if you buy individual courses, and . . . these are pretty cool.  The first of those is access to a new student only community within the platform to share progress, ask questions etc.  This would be in addition to the existing student only Facebook community that all students have access to.   The second bonus you get is a downloadable “Ultimate Piano Poster”; this thing is actually REALLY cool, I just might have to go get this printed poster size someplace; as a quick reference for a piano player, it has a TON of info right there.  You have the circle of 5ths, all the notes on the piano (and on the music staff if you’re a sight reader), there are some musical definitions listed, but what I would use all the time is the bottom half – this has all your major, minor, augmented, diminished and 7^th chords WITH inversions, as well as all your major, harmonic minor, melodic minor, and minor blues scales, so . . . this is an awesome resource!   And then the next bonus, is ALSO really cool – Bird’s Piano Academy has a public YouTube channel with a ton of great instructional or QUICK TIP types of videos; now while these are publicly available, subscription students will have access to a BUNCH of downloadable resources for many of these videos, so possibly sheet music or other resources like PDF song sheets, backing tracks used in the video etc, so this is a great resource – almost like having an extra full course included. 

Individual Courses (“A La Carte”; Lifetime Access)

Ok so the OTHER option is to purchase LIFETIME ACCESS to just the course or courses that you want, so just a one time payment, and no subscription is required.   So how much are the courses priced at for lifetime access?   They’re all again . . . REALLY inexpensive and great value, currently at less than $50 USD each.   If you were to buy ALL the courses THIS way (and at present there are 7 courses in total), it would cost you less than $300USD for LIFETIME access to all of them. 

Which Pricing Model Is Best?

So which pricing model is best?  Well that’s totally up to you; I’m USUALLY all in favor of online piano training that allows you to buy courses outright so I have lifetime access to them; Bird’s prices for lifetime access to the individual courses ARE REALLY inexpensive AND a great deal; AND, MOST of the subscription model online courses that I’ve encountered DO TEND to be a LOT more expensive than the $6.50-$9USD per month that Bird’s Piano Academy charges.   AND, keep in mind all those extras you get with Bird’s subscription model, AND that with the subscription model, you ALSO get access to any NEW courses Arthur adds along the way.  

So as an example; all of the CURRENT courses (at the time of this review) add up to a total of about $274 USD; at $6.50 per month for a yearly subscription, that’s FORTY TWO months; and by the time 42 months have gone by, Arthur will most likely have added MULTIPLE new courses that you will automatically just have access to, without having to pay $40 odd for each one, so . . . Once again, totally up to you; like I said earlier, I’m usually a fan of one time course payments, but this subscription is SO inexpensive, it’s actually a great way to go, especially if you see yourself wanting to take more than just one or 2 of Arthur’s courses.  But, either way?  Bird’s Piano Academy is probably the best value per money online piano training out there . . .

Courses

Birds Piano Chords Mini-Course (FREE)

Main Courses

For a full demo on this course, check out the link to my review at the bottom of this page. It starts out with lessons for pure beginners, the notes on the piano, intervals and basic chords; and then the next section jumps right into playing simple songs with chords, and introduces basic rhythms.   So this is a perfect example of what I was talking about earlier; having achievable goals to recognize your progress, and what Arthur emphasizes about his teaching style; making this process fun and engaging; after only a few lessons, you can start having fun playing actual songs.  And by actual songs; we’re talking about popular songs by modern artists; one of the first examples he shows is Someone Like You by Adele; if you compare that to traditional piano lessons, where at the equivalent stage you would still be struggling with boring and repetitive sight reading lessons, and if you’re lucky, be working on sight reading single note melodies off of sheet music for Mary Had A Little Lamb.  And by making these lessons fun, engaging and rewarding?   That’s what keeps you playing; being excited about practicing what you’ve learned, and excited about moving on to the next section to build on your skills.

Then Arthur goes into some more advanced chords, and then in the section after that, ups the game by introducing some more rhythm patterns and examples.   And this pattern of having a section of  “learning more advanced chords” & then a section of “learning more advanced rhythm techniques” continues.  And this is a great way to learn because chords and rhythms are really the backbone of learning to play piano.   Left hand rhythm patterns, are SUPER important, and really elevate your playing by finding rhythms that are appropriate for different genres; this is something else you don’t really even see in traditional piano lessons.   Then scrolling way ahead, we have a section on Advanced chords and rhythms; now by the time you get to this point in the course; you’re going to be able to do something that you probably didn’t even dream of being able to do this quickly, if you started this course as a total beginner. 

And that’s actually what Arthur goes into in the next section; how to go online and find chords for a song you want to learn how to play.  He also goes into how to transpose a chord chart to a different key signature to suit your singing voice if you want to sing along.   So now, you’re ready to go online and grab a chord chart for a song, familiarize yourself with the chords for the song; you can start practicing playing along with the song using chords in your right hand, and then as you get comfortable doing that, figure out what type of left hand rhythm pattern matches the FEEL of that song, and incorporate that into your playing.  And after some practice, you’ll be playing a great version of that song yourself! 

So what’s next in the course after having learned so much about chords and rhythm patterns?  This is where Arthur teaches you more advanced topics like the chord numbering system, circle of 5ths, passing chords and introduces major and minor scales as well as suspended and passing chords.   Then, we get into the bonus section, which is over 30 ADDITIONAL video lessons on Improvisation.   Once you’re able to play along with a song, playing an appropriate rhythm pattern in your left hand and chords in your right hand, learning how to take your playing to the next level by adding in improvisation is the next natural step; and as far as teaching improvisation?  After having taken MANY online piano courses, I can tell you that teaching improvisation is something that Arthur Bird does EXTREMELY well.  I actually did a demo of how good his improv instruction was in my review of the Beginner Blues course which you can check out if you like, but just to kind of sum that up here; he not only teaches you various techniques for improvisation (including using chords, melodies and scales), but instead of doing what a LOT of the competition does, which is just saying “OK here’s a scale you can use to solo in the key of whatever; now go have fun and start playing solos”, his examples and especially his practice exercises are REALLY well done, and really help you in getting comfortable with gradually inserting improv into your play.    So the Ultimate Piano Chords course?  Absolutely fantastic; to be honest, if you wanted to buy ONE online piano course to get started learning piano, at $40 USD for lifetime access?   This probably is one of the best, if not the best value for money options there is.  And in addition to everything I’ve mentioned here, you can also download a 25 page PDF book Arthur has put together on chords, with charts & diagrams that you keep handy for reference when you need it. 

Ok so now on to the other courses:

We have the Beginner Blues & Improv course for about $47 USD, Slow Blues for $45 USD, Beginner Jazz for $45 USD, the new Boogie Woogie course for $45 USD, and then a course on Ear Training for $15 USD and a course on Sight Reading for $37 USD.   Now I’ve completed the beginner blues course (this was actually the first course I took from Bird’s Piano Academy) & I’ve also completed the Ultimate Chords Course; (I do have separate reviews on both of those that I’ve linked to at the bottom of this page), and I’ve done about half of the Slow Blues course, and I’m almost done the Boogie Woogie course.  I haven’t found time yet to dive into the Jazz course, but it is on the list as well. 

Can Beginners Take The “Other” Courses (Blues, Jazz etc)

Now the courses on blues, jazz and boogie woogie COULD be taken by a beginner, but I’d really recommend that you have some of the BASICS covered first; in my opinion, you should ideally have a basic knowledge of the notes on the piano, be able to play some BASIC rhythms in your left hand, and be comfortable with playing major and minor chords in your right . . . and have a basic understanding of how those chords are constructed, before taking any of these extra courses.  To be honest, if you’re a total beginner but you really want to dive into one of the blues or jazz courses?  Work through the free mini-course on chords first, and that will help IMMENSELY on preparing for one of those other courses.  But if you are a beginner? . . . It would really be worth it for you to take the full Ultimate Chords course first. 

My Experience With Birds Piano Academy

Now I have to say, the beginner blues course, which was the first one I took is why I dove into so many of these other courses, and why I recommend Bird’s Piano Academy so highly.  You can watch my full review for more info and examples, but to sum it up – when I first took that course, I had a pretty solid foundation already in left hand rhythm patterns and right hand chord playing; I could look up a song online and be playing along with it pretty well, and pretty quickly – but as far as soloing or improv?   I was really struggling, and kind of spinning my wheels.  As I mentioned a couple of minutes ago, the lessons and moreso Arthur’s approach and examples on how to practice and actually put improv into use from that course were TOTALLY GAMECHANGING for me, and after that course, my level of play and ability to improv took a significant jump to a higher level.  The slow blues course continued to add to my abilities, and when I took the Ultimate Chords course about a year ago for my review, I was thinking “hey great beginner’s course, but this is just going to be review for me . . .”  well?  Surprise surprise, yes I flew threw the first half or so of that course, then . . . all of a sudden I’m learning a TON of super useful stuff in the rest of that course; and the improv section in the Ultimate Chords course added a bunch MORE to the improv abilities I picked up in the blues course, once again, taught really well.   And I just recently have worked through the first 2/3 or so of the new Boogie Woogie course, and once again, this course is also filling in some holes in my playing abilities. 

Now the other 2 courses available in Bird’s Piano Academy I haven’t talked about a lot; there is a course on Ear Training, to help you pick out notes, melodies and chords by ear – this is actually super interesting & I will definitely be giving this a try at some stage; this kind of training and practice really is a great way to just improve your overall musicianship, and it’s super inexpensive at only $15 USD.   Then there is a course on learning to sightread sheet music for those that are interested in that; now I have virtually ZERO sightreading ability, and that’s never once been an issue for me in learning to play, and I’ve been happily playing in bands and gigging for a few years now, and never once has not being able to sightread even come up.  But when I looked into this course in a bit more detail?   It’s . . . . actually really interesting to me, because Arthur uses a unique approach for teaching sightreading that uses what he calls “guide notes”; so instead of trying to memorize all of the notes on the treble and bass clef and where they are on the piano, you instead memorize only a few guide notes, and then use the relative positions on the staff to those guide notes to find other notes by getting comfortable with intervals.  Like I said, I personally don’t really have ANY NEED to learn how to sight read, I do find this method kind of intriguing so I might be giving this course a shot one day; this course sells for $37USD.

The VERDICT – Birds Piano Academy

So, the overall verdict on Bird’s Piano Academy? 

Absolutely fantastic, I can’t recommend these courses enough!

Like I said at the start of this review, there is a MASSIVE amount of content here, Arthur’s lessons and exercises are super effective and easy to follow, and whether you decide to get monthly subscription or buy courses outright with lifetime access?   Either way, they are INCREDIBLY inexpensive, and a fantastic value for money.  If you’re a new or even intermediate player, the Ultimate Chords course is an amazing program, and once you have some experience, the courses in blues, jazz and boogie woogie are great addons to up your skills in specific genres, and the ear training and sight reading courses are super cool resources to have. 

So I would highly recommend that you just jump right into Birds Piano Academy either with one of the courses or the subscription; and if you’re not sure about it?  You can test drive the entire program with the subscription for free for 7 days, or you can also just try out the free mini chords course to check it out, so really . . . nothing to lose there.   I’ve left links below to my full reviews on the beginner blues and ultimate chords courses, as well as some links to get started with Birds Piano Academy.  

Check Out Birds Piano Academy

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Ultimate Piano Chords Course – Full Review

Beginner Blues Course – Full Review