Piano Lessons with Top Pro: The Beach Boys, Rod Stewart, Ricky Nelson, others. for $100

Hi. I am Elmo Peeler, a conservatory-trained professional rock pianist/arranger/conductor/composer. My passion in life has been the piano - playing it and composing for it. Over the years I've toured the world, playing and arranging for three Hall-of-Fame rock artists: The Beach Boys, Ricky Nelson, and Rod Stewart.

I also teach piano, music theory, composition, and ear training via Skype. My students have included members of "Vampire Weekend", "Incubus", "Weezer", "The Strokes", Jason Schwartzman, Courteney Cox, and others.

I'll be happy to help you improve your technique and rhythm, and to develop relative pitch so that you know what you're hearing without having to go to a keyboard.

I joined my first rock band at 14, began recording at 15, won the Mississippi State Piano Competition both my Junior and Senior years of high school, graduated as a National Merit Scholar, and got an education at The Eastman School of Music (Rochester, NY) and Interlochen Summer Arts Camp.

In my early 20's I moved to L.A., where Carl Wilson asked me to join the rhythm section of The Beach Boys, with whom I toured internationally, playing piano, B-3 organ, and synthesizers, plus writing arrangements for their five-piece touring horn section. During these years both Carl and Dennis Wilson asked me to write arrangements for their outside-The Beach Boys projects as well, including Dennis' first solo album, "Pacific Ocean Blue".

However, The Beach Boys had a bad habit of in-fighting and once actually broke up. Immediately The Sweet Inspirations, Elvis' back-up singers, asked me to become their Musical Director (pianist/arranger). Their 1960's hit, "Sweet Inspiration" had been a favorite of mine as a teenager.

When The Sweet Inspirations became the opening act for Ricky Nelson & The Stone Canyon Band, Ricky heard me play and asked me to join his band. Fortunately I decided to leave before the plane tragedy.

Then one day the phone rang and a friend asked if I'd be interested in touring with Rod Stewart, as arranger/conductor/keyboardist for his "Unplugged" tours. It was a fun situation where every afternoon a different group of twenty-one men and women - members of the local symphony orchestra, who preferred Bach to rock - would let me teach them the arrangements for a two-hour show to be performed that evening before audiences of 20,000 to 200,000 (we set an attendance record at Wembley Stadium of about 81,500).

Drop me a note and let me know your musical goals.