Learning to carry a tune is something - well just that - something that's learned. People who can't carry a tune haven't been taught how to vocalize tones properly. They're tone shy. We teach anyone to carry a tune in short order, and the course devotes special attention to solving this problem for anyone who has it.

I could never get my left and right hands to do different things before.

In the classical tradition coordinating left and right hands to do different tasks is a more complex business. But in the song tradition, chords typically change in a very regular way and most of the work takes place in the right hand. The left hand really doesn't do that much. Few people find this to be a problem in playing songs by ear.

How I can learn to play without someone watching me to make sure I'm not doing it wrong.

The music itself has its way of teaching you if you're doing it right or not, and a great deal of time in the course is spent not only talking about the details of scales and chords, but about how to practice effectively. What does that really mean? This course makes you your own best teacher. That's the goal. And if you're motivated, and take the course seriously, you are your own best teacher, in fact. You don't need anyone standing over your shoulder each week, except to collect a weekly lesson charge.

How can you learn to play by ear if you don't know the melody of a song?

First you'll use what's called a "fakebook", with melodies written down and chord symbols on top. Just the right hand part. And we teach you how to read that right hand part in such a "fakebook". By the way, these books are available everywhere, in bookstores, music stores, and all popular musicians use them. So you'll learn how to read the single-note-at-a-time melody line for those songs you don't know well enough to pick out the melody. But you'll also know how to take suggested chord symbols and play the song with a beautiful arrangement and without reading a two hand score. Soon!