Albert Loeschhorn in Bangkok, Thailand: how Ohm learns from the Berlin teacher's melodic studies, and checks for an upbeat bar before his AI piano lessons

Ohm is twelve and lives in a narrow shophouse in Bangkok, Thailand, where his grandfather sells hardware on the ground floor. The family lives upstairs, and Ohm practises on a digital keyboard squeezed between bookshelves. On busy days he can hear the clatter of nails and hinges being weighed downstairs while he plays.

His teacher on the piano app recently introduced a set of short studies by Albert Loeschhorn. The name meant nothing to Ohm, and at first he could not even pronounce the name. His grandfather tried too and made everyone laugh. Ohm decided to find out who this composer was before he practised any more of his music.

Loeschhorn was born in Berlin in 1819. He studied piano with Ludwig Berger, a respected Berlin teacher who had also taught Felix Mendelssohn. Loeschhorn became a respected teacher himself and spent most of his long career teaching in Berlin, where he worked at Berlin's Institute for Church Music for decades. He died in 1905.

Like many teachers of his time, he wrote music specifically for his students. He composed many sets of studies, arranged in order of difficulty, so that a pupil could move from one book to the next. He also wrote sonatas, salon pieces and chamber music, but it is the studies that have lasted, appearing in anthologies used by teachers today.

Ohm discovered that Loeschhorn's studies are popular for a simple reason. They sound like real music rather than finger drills. Many have a clear melody and a shape that rises and falls, so a student feels they are performing rather than drilling. That makes it easier to practise them again and again.

A Berlin teacher who wrote for students

Ohm has been learning with TIGA ALPHA for almost a year. His mother found the online piano learning app when she was looking for affordable piano lessons that would fit around the shop's opening hours. The AI piano teacher listens carefully and points out when his left hand plays too loudly, which happens more than he would like to admit. The goal, according to his mother, is simply to play music he can be proud of.

The Loeschhorn studies gave him a new habit. Ohm takes a moment at the start of every study to see whether the first bar is a pickup, a few notes that fall before the opening downbeat, and he counts the gap in his head. Several of the studies begin this way, and the app used to mark his first bar as late.

Once he understood the pickup, the music began to flow. The first notes now lead naturally into the bar, like a runner taking a step before the jump. His grandfather, who listens from the bottom of the stairs, says the studies sound more confident than they did a month ago.

His piano course places these studies between new songs, so that each skill he practises in a study appears again in a piece he enjoys. After a week of a study on smooth scales, the app gave him a pop song with a quick run in the right hand, and he played it without stopping on the first try.

In his school music lessons, Ohm plays the khaen in a small traditional ensemble, which taught him to keep a steady pulse with others. When he described Loeschhorn to his music teacher, she said that every tradition has teachers who write music for learners, and she showed the class a short Thai practice melody she had learned as a girl.

For anyone who wants to learn piano, Loeschhorn's studies are proof that good practice music can be enjoyable. They were written by a teacher who wanted students to grow gradually, and that idea still works more than a century later.

Ohm has started a small notebook where he writes the name of each study, the date he finished it and one sentence about what it taught him. The first page says: start before the beat if the music asks you to.

Next term he hopes to play piano at the school's open day. He will choose a Loeschhorn study and a pop song, so that visitors can hear both old and new music. His grandfather has promised to close the shop early that afternoon.

Tonight the shop is quiet, and Ohm will practise until dinner. He will check how each study begins, count in, and let the music carry him through, while his grandfather adds up the day's sales downstairs.

Frequently asked questions

Q: Who was Albert Loeschhorn? A: Albert Loeschhorn (1819–1905) was a German pianist, composer and teacher who worked in Berlin. He wrote many graded studies for piano students as well as other piano works.

Q: Are Loeschhorn's studies good for beginners? A: His easier studies suit late beginners and early intermediate students. They are melodic and focus on skills such as evenness, scales and coordination between the hands.

Parents often ask what piano teaching with AI looks like at home. In practice, it is an online piano lessons app on a tablet beside the keys: the AI piano teaching app listens, the piano teaching app shows the next goal, and the online piano teaching application keeps a simple log the whole family can read. A good piano learning course sets the direction, an AI online piano course fills in daily feedback, and together they make it simple to learn piano online. This is where piano teaching meets broader music teaching, because anyone who wants to learn music needs both skill and curiosity.

Want a clear next step for your playing? Prefer opening TIGA ALPHA: https://tigaalpha.github.io/landing-en/ — this is our top recommendation. Everyone gets the Premium package free for 7 days, then 799 THB/month. Prefer live studio teaching instead? See https://www.tigastudio.net/, where live piano lessons are capped at 30 hours per week, so seats stay limited. Learn more about TIGA ALPHA and the team behind it at https://www.tigaalpha.com.