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Faq

For an optimum video experience BSharpTricks recommends using the Google Chrome browser.

Account Questions:

What is the difference between the Basic and Premium memberships?

The Premium membership subscription gives you full access to all of BSharpTricks.com lessons. With a Premium membership you can take a lesson anytime of day or night at your own pace from your home or on any computer on the Internet. The subscription fee is $20 per month or $199 for a full year's subscription.

The Basic membership is free and gives you access to a limited number of free lessons. It is designed to let you "try out" several lessons at your own pace.

How do I sign up for Premium membership?

Go to the Register tab in the navigation menu and select Premier Membership. You will be given the choice to sign up for a monthly subscription (auto-renewing each month) or a full year's access subscription.

What payment methods do you accept?

We accept Master Card, Visa, American Express, and Discover.

What if I don't want to pay online?

Our payment gateway if fully secure and your transaction is protected. However, if you wish you may contact customer support at customerservice@bsharptricks.com or 210-865-1779 for other options.

How does monthly credit card billing work?

Premium memberships are billed monthly. Recurring account billing happens each month on the date that you originally signed up.

How do I cancel my subscription?

Premium memberships that are billed monthly can be cancelled anytime. Upon clicking Cancel your account will immediately revert to a Basic account without regard for any subscription days remaining in the month. You will have continued access until the following recurring account billing date after which you will no longer have Premium access. To cancel please contact customer support at customersupport@bsharptricks.com.

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Video Player Questions:

The high quality video seems to stutter during playback what can I do?

BST recommends the Google Chrome brower for an optomized and fast video experience.

After trying the Chrome browers and still experiencing video issues it may be that you do not have a fast enough internet connection to facilitate high quality playback. Our player is powered by Vimeo and should automatically adjust to your internet connection speed. In some remote cases it my be necessary to purchase our data disc DVD's and play the videos locally on your computer.

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Account Access Questions:

I forgot my user name and/or password what can I do?

Please email customer service at customersupport@bsharptricks.com for a password reset.

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General Questions:

I have not received a welcome email or email response from customer service - should I have?

When you sign up and when you send an email to customer support you should get an immediate auto response. Please check your spam or trash folder. Please add communications from BsharpTricks.com to your address book so that communications will not get routed to your spam/trash folder.

The lead instructor's jokes are so lame! What can I do about this?

We agree with you, unfortunately all of the video editing in the world couldn't remove all the lame jokes and the weird sense of humor of our lead instructor. You'll have to bear with the jokes, but please try not to laugh it only encourages him.

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Piano Lessons Questions:

What style of piano instruction is this?

There are essentially three ways to learn to play piano:

  1. A Classical method where sight reading and traditional sheet music is emphasized.
  2. A Jazz Improvisational method where lead sheets, chord approaches, and improvisations are emphasized.
  3. By ear, where a person can play without anything in front of them because they have lea rned to recognize patterns in music.

The lessons at BSharpTricks.com are a Jazz improvisational approach with an eye towards the student grasping the concepts to also be able to play by ear. While a classical method has some value, in church-type and most performance style settings, a Jazz improvisational approach is more beneficial and rewarding. (It's also much more fun!) With a few exceptions, worship-style choruses and songs are used to illustrate the musical principles being taught.

What is the origin of this particular series?

The videos reflect the teaching style of the lead instructor, Jeremiah Sibley, and are largely lessons that were developed over years of teaching piano in private lessons and from the many music conferences sessions that he has directed. They are a reflection of how he was taught by his own personal piano teachers, his love for jazz piano, and the strange but effective way his brain thinks about music.

What is the difference between The Series at BSharpTricks.com and the Advanced Lessons?

The Series is a sequential, step-by-step series of lessons just as if you were taking personal, one-on-one piano lessons from Jeremiah Sibley and it begins assuming you know nothing musically. Typically, even if a somewhat advanced student comes to Jeremiah, he would quickly cover most of this material in The Series to ensure that nothing was missed.

Most of the Advanced Lessons assume that a person has a basic grasp of common chords and a basic playing ability. The main difference is that the Advanced Lessons do not build upon one another but stand alone in teaching a unique musical concept.

What are Snacks?

Snacks are generally shorter in length as far as time required to teach and/or time required to learn. They may also be something that doesn't fit neatly into a larger topic elsewhere. If you only have a few minutes to learn something or just want to learn something new at random, take a snack!

What is the difference between a lesson and a segment?

Generally speaking, at BSharpTricks.com a lesson contains an overall concept to be learned and segments are videos that work together to present the lesson. A lesson is usually made up of several video segments that work together to present the full concept. After viewing segment one of a lesson, click "segment two" located immediately under the video window to advance to the next segment. Unless otherwise noted, all segments of a lesson should be viewed and completed before moving on to the next lesson.

Where should I begin?

If you are new to piano lessons or only have an abbreviated experience in musical instruction, you should begin at the beginning of The Series and work your way through the concepts presented there. Even if you have taken piano lessons before for quite some time and yet consider yourself a beginner, it might be a good idea to begin at the beginning and at least skim the first lessons because it could be that a reason that you are struggling to advance musically is an incomplete foundation theoretically. If you are an advanced piano player, you still might want to view the first lessons just for the great sense of humor exhibited by the lead instructor!

If you are an intermediate to advanced or more experienced piano player, use the following questions to determine your starting point:

Are you able to make, form, explain, and use major, minor, diminished, and augmented triads? If not, you should begin at Lesson Seven of The Series to at least fill in the blanks of your knowledge.

Are you able to play, form, and explain "Two" chords, Suspensions, and Sixth chords? If not, then you should begin with Lesson Thirteen of The Series.

Do you know the difference between a major 7th and a dominant 7th chord? Do you know when you should play one and not the other? If not, you should begin with Lesson Seventeen of The Series.

Do you understand the difference between a Half-Diminished 7th chord and a Fully-Diminished 7th chord? If not, you should begin with Lesson Nineteen of The Series.

Do you understand and already know how to use 9th, Flat 9th, 11th, 13th, and 13th Flat 9th, chords? If not, you should begin with Lesson Twenty-One of The Series.

Generally speaking, if you have a basic understanding of 13th chords and can play slow songs fairly competently, you should move forward to Advanced Studies and choose something that interests you.

How often are new lessons added?

New lessons are shot and added to the site very frequently, so you should continually check back for new material. Especially check the Advanced Studies and Snacks for new lessons.

I'm having difficulty understanding or playing the material of a particular lesson, what should I do?

First ensure that you have completed the prerequisite material for the lesson that you are viewing. The later lessons of The Series and the Advanced Studies assume that you have a good grasp of key theoretical concepts, musical vocabulary, and at least a somewhat working knowledge of 13th chords.

Secondly, watch the video again! This is the beauty of BSharpTricks.com – you can repeat the lessons as often as you would like. Be sure that you understood the principles of the previous segments of a lesson and review them again if necessary.

Thirdly, try posting a note on the Forum part of the site outlining your difficulty and you can interact with instructors and other students to help you move forward musically in this area.

Fourthly, be sure that you are not just watching videos but are actually learning the concepts, drills, and activities that are being assigned. A strength of BSharpTricks.com is that you can move at your own pace, but a weakness is that someone might choose to move forward too quickly. There are no shortcuts to playing piano or any other musical instrument competently and it will take hours at the piano actually working on being able to do what you are seeing presented effortlessly on the video.

Fifthly, keep persevering! If playing the piano competently were easy, then everybody would be able to do it. The truth is that there is no easy way out and some principles and skills often take hours and hours of practice to learn and perform. While BSharpTricks.com provides you the material and instruction that you need to move forward musically and organizes it so that the next step is waiting, to fully grasp and implement the concepts presented here will take years. There have been many people who don't play the piano today that wish that they would have taken lessons or not stopped, but there is nobody who can play the piano competently today who regrets the effort that they expended to get to such a place musically – stick with it, the results will be worth the sacrifice!

What do I need to begin?

A relatively recent-model computer with a high-speed Internet connection, a premium membership at BSharpTricks.com, and a willingness to learn are absolute necessities. A sense of humor – while not required – certainly helps.

You will also need something to practice on: either a piano, keyboard with piano sound, or access to such an instrument. For a guitar or organ lesson, you would need the appropriate instrument to practice the material. For beginning's sakes, the practice instrument need not be expensive but any keyboard used should have full-size, standard keys. A general rule is that the more keys the better and some weight to the keys is beneficial although not absolutely necessary. You really need a sustain pedal for your keyboard in order to establish correct habits that will enable you to excel in a performance-style setting. A keyboard really needs a stand to rest it upon and often some sort of amplifier so that it can be heard. Headphones are a great option, also and can really go a long way in improving your relationship with family members who are sick of hearing the same trick or song over and over again!

Should I sit or stand up to play keyboards?

It really doesn't matter, albeit the greatest piano players in the world all have one trait in common: they sit down to play the piano. Some people prefer to stand up and adjust their keyboard stand accordingly – just ensure that the keys are not too high or too low so that you can maintain proper posture.

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Lead Instructor Questions:

Who is the lead instructor?

Robert Jeremiah Sibley is the lead instructor at BSharpTricks.com. He currently resides in south Texas and was born September 7, 1976. He has been married to DeAnna since one wonderful Saturday in October of 1997. He is the proud father of two beautiful girls. He thanks you in advance for all of the gifts that you will send him now that you know his birthday.

What is Jeremiah Sibley's musical background?

Jeremiah began taking piano lessons at the age of twelve from Michelle Swindoll, now Michelle Penton. He attended Bible College at Jackson College of Ministries under the tutelage of DeDie Cooley. He was Music Minister at FUPC of San Antonio, pastor Tim Wallace, for four and a half years. Since 2000, Jeremiah has served as senior pastor to Medina Valley Christian Worship where he is also heavily involved in the church music program. He has taught private piano lessons to students of various ages weekly since 1997 and enjoys teaching music. Influences to his personal piano style can be heard in the early piano albums of Harry Connick Jr and the discography of the late Gene Harris. He is currently a very avid fan of Hiromi Uehara's piano work.

What is Jeremiah Sibley's religious background?

Jeremiah has been an active part of Pentecostal churches and Pentecostal-style worship services all of his life. His mother served as the music minister of the local church for most of his childhood. Jeremiah is an ordained minister of the United Pentecostal Church International. The church he pastors currently performs a wide variety in styles of worship music, ranging from reworked traditional hymns to guitar-driven modern praise and worship. A little Black Gospel and Contemporary always seems to find its way into the sets and every once in a while a Southern Gospel, country-style song will come out.

 

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Privacy Policy:

1. Introduction

BSharpTricks.com or BSharpTricks is owned and operated by Brain Science Productions LLC, a company incorporated in the State of Texas, USA. This privacy policy and Terms of Use set out the basis on which any personal data that we have collected about you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

This is the privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) that governs how we, BSharpTricks (“we”, “our” or “us”), use Personal Data (defined below) that we collect, receive and store about individuals in connection with the use of: (i) the websites at www. BSharpTricks.com and any other website under the BSharpTricks.com domain that we operate (collectively, together with their sub-domains, content and services, the “Sites”).

We ourselves do not host any of the Sites and Service. All hosting is done by third-party service providers that we engage. This means that data you provide us or that we collect from you (including any Personal Data, as defined below) – as further described in this Privacy Policy – is hosted with such third-party service providers on servers that they own or control. Regardless of where such third-party service providers are located, their servers may be located anywhere in the world. Your data may even be replicated across multiple servers located in multiple countries.

We review this privacy policy regularly. Occasionally we may need to make changes or additions to this privacy policy that may affect how we handle your data. We will post new versions of this privacy policy on our website (the “Site”). We are committed to safeguarding the privacy of our website visitors and readers; in this policy we explain how we will treat your personal information.

This Privacy Policy has been updated to ensure compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into effect on May 25, 2018 and affecting residents of the EU and European Economic Area (EEA).

 

BSharpTricks.com provides two levels of access to the Site and its Services. Any visitor to the Site will be able to access only basic information about the Site and the Services of BSharpTricks.com. Site visitors may register to use the Site by providing basic information to BSharpTricks.com, and registered users receive limited access to Site Services. Registered users may subscribe to BSharpTricks.com Full Access. Subscription requires periodic payments to take and remain in effect. Subscribers agree to pay for the subscription period selected at the time of purchase. Subscribers will receive a confirmation notice upon their original effective date. It is the subscriber\'s responsibility to review the notice to ensure that it accurately reflects the requested subscription period.

Subscription renewal is automatic, and subscribers authorize automatic renewal of their subscriptions until cancelled. Subscribers can cancel the automatic renewal of their subscription at any time. To do so, contact us using any of the methods described at BSharpTricks.com/ contact.php and provide your account username and password. Your account will be canceled at the beginning of the next billing cycle. You will continue to have access to the website until the end of the current paid month

2. Collecting personal data and When we collect it

You are not legally obligated to provide us Personal Data and may do so at your own free will. If you do not agree to provide us with such data or have it processed by us or any of our authorized third parties or service providers, please simply do not enter our Sites or use our Service. We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time at our discretion. Such change will be effective seven (7) days following posting of the revised Privacy Policy on the Sites, and your continued use of the Service thereafter means that you accept those changes. For changes affecting opt-ins you will be asked to expressly give your consent.

2.1 When we collect your personal data:

We receive and collect Personal Data from you when you provide us your information to signup to our newsletters, when you download our resources (reports, ebooks, guides), when you sign up to our events, when you sign up to our lesson site,, when you contact us for a general inquiry or when you make a purchase and provide your billing information.

We receive and collect Personal Data from your browser or mobile device about your use of the Sites and Service. We use log files and analytics tools to analyze trends, administer the Sites and Service, track users’ movement around the Sites and Service, and gather statistical data. We use “cookies”, technical identifiers and Pixels in order to provide and enhance our Sites and Service. We also collect limited data regarding your system and device, such as your mobile device id or browser preferences.

We receive and collect Personal Data from Third Parties, such as service providers, ad networks and marketing agencies, or from Services Integrations when you use third party integrations.

2.2 What personal data we collect or may collect:

(a) anonymous information about your computer and about your visits to and use of this website (including your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, operating system, referral source, length of visit, page views and website navigation paths);

(b) information that you provide to us when registering with our website;

(c) information that you provide to us for the purpose of subscribing to our email notifications and/or newsletters (including your name and email address);

(e) information that you provide to us when using the services on our website, or that is generated in the course of the use of those services (including the timing, frequency and pattern of service use);

(f) information relating to any purchases you make of our services or any other transactions that you enter into through our website (including your name, address, telephone number, email address and card details);

(g) information contained in or relating to any communications that you send to us or send through our website (including the communication content and meta data associated with the communication);

(i) any other personal information that you choose to send to us; and

(j) information contained in opt-in forms, that might also be used by authorized third parties with your express consent

(k) anonymous cookie ID, Advertising ID, and/or device ID to segment user groups for marketing purposes, and to execute retargeting campaigns in order to deliver personalised advertising by BSharpTricks or authorized third parties

(l) Pixel tags that tell us what parts of the website have been visited or measure the effectiveness of searches users perform on the website. We may also use pixel tags in email messages to tell us whether emails have been opened to assure that we are only sending messages that are of interest to our users.

2.2 Before you disclose to us the personal information of another person, you must obtain that person's consent to both the disclosure and the processing of that personal information in accordance with this policy.

3. How we use your personal data

Personal information submitted to us through our Sites and resources, including digital publications and webinars, will be used for the purposes specified in this policy or on the relevant pages of the websites or individual resources.

We may use your personal information to:

(a) supply to you services purchased, subscribed to or requested through our websites, including but not limited to the

(b) accessing resources you requested to read or download;

(c) send you notifications about events you have registered or requested to attend;

(d) send you notifications about BSharpTricks resources and events if you have subscribed to our BSharpTricks portal;

(e) send you email notifications that you have specifically requested;

(f) send you our email newsletters, if you have requested it (you can inform us at any time if you no longer require the newsletter);

(g) send you marketing communications relating to our business

(h) send statements, invoices and payment reminders to you, and collect payments from you;

(i) send you relevant communications that we have a legitimate interest in sending you;

(j) deal with enquiries and complaints made by or about you relating to our website;

(k) keep our website secure and prevent fraud;

3.1 If you submit personal information for publication on our websites, we will publish and otherwise use that information in accordance with the licence you grant to us.

4. Disclosing personal information

We may disclose your personal information:

(a) to the extent that we are required to do so by law;

(b) in connection with any ongoing or prospective legal proceedings;

(c) in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (including providing information to others for the purposes of fraud prevention and reducing credit risk);

(d) to the purchaser (or prospective purchaser) of any business or asset that we are (or are contemplating) selling; and

(e) to any person who we reasonably believe may apply to a court or other competent authority for disclosure of that personal information where, in our reasonable opinion, such court or authority would be reasonably likely to order disclosure of that personal information.

(f) to authorized third parties (sponsors) when you submit your data to access our resources, including but not limited to ebooks, webinars, reports. You will be informed of the sponsors' names at signup.

(g) to business partners and affiliates, so they can contact you in order to offer or promote our products and services

Except as provided in this policy, we will not provide your personal information to third parties.

5. Outside links

8.1 Our website includes hyperlinks to, and details of, third party websites.

8.2 We have no control over, and are not responsible for, the privacy policies and practices of third parties.

6. Cookies and Pixels

6.1 Cookies are information packets sent by web servers to web browsers, and stored by the web browsers.

6.2 The information is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. This enables a web server to identify and track web browsers.

6.3 There are two main kinds of cookies: session cookies and persistent cookies. Session cookies are deleted from your computer when you close your browser, whereas persistent cookies remain stored on your computer until deleted, or until they reach their expiry date.

6.4 Cookies on Our Website. BSharpTricks uses the following cookies on

this website, for the following purposes:

(a) Social Media Cookies

(b) Google Analytics Cookies

(c) Ecommerce Cookies

(d) Facebook pixel

(e) Nimble pixel

(f) Yesware pixel

6.5 Google Cookies. BSharpTricks uses Google Analytics to analyse the use of this website. Google Analytics generates statistical and other information about website use by means of cookies, which are stored on users’ computers. The information generated relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of the website. Google will store and use this information. Google’s privacy policy is available at: http://www.google.com/privacypolicy.html.] 6.4 Refusing Cookies. Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies.

(a) In Internet Explorer, you can refuse all cookies by clicking “Tools”, “Internet Options”, “Privacy”, and selecting “Block all cookies” using the sliding selector.

(b) In Firefox, you can adjust your cookies settings by clicking “Tools”, “Options” and “Privacy”.

6.5 Blocking cookies will have a negative impact upon the usability of our websites.

7. Remarketing

We may use Google’s remarketing service to target our or third party's ads to you based on your prior use of the Site when you visit on other sites in Google Display or Search Network.

8. Security of your personal information

8.1 We will take reasonable technical and organizational precautions to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal information.

8.2 You acknowledge that the transmission of information over the internet is inherently insecure, and we cannot guarantee the security of data sent over the internet.

8.3 You are responsible for keeping any password you should use for accessing our website confidential; we will not ask you for your password (except when you log in to our website).

9. How long we keep your personal data

Your information we use for marketing purposes will be kept with us until you notify us that you no longer wish to receive this information.

10. Amendments

10.1 We may update this policy from time to time by publishing a new version on our website.

10.2 You should check this page occasionally to ensure you agree with any changes to this policy.

11. Your rights

You will be asked to expressly agree in advance to our use of your personal information for the purposes outlined in this Policy. We always provide you with an opportunity to opt out of the use of your personal information for marketing purposes, cancel your subscriptions, delete your profile, delete your data altogether. Please let us know if you wish to update or delete the personal data we hold about you by emailing us at customer service @ BSharpTricks.com or simply unsubscribe from any email where an unsubscribe or opt-out link is provided.

12. Children’s Privacy 

Our Sites and services are not structured to attract children under the age of 16, and we do not intend to collect Personal Data from anyone we know to be under 16. If we learn that we have collected Personal Data from anyone under 16 years, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have any such information, please contact us at

customer service@BSharpTricks.com

13. Our details

12.1 This website is owned and operated by Brain Science Productions LLC.

12.2 We are registered in State of Texas.

12.3 You can contact us by using our website contact form or by email to ‘customerservice@BSharpTricks.com’

 

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Terms of Service:

Acceptance of Terms and Conditions

Welcome to the BSharpTricks.com web site (www.bsharptricks.com, the "Site"), owned and operated by Brian Science Productions LLC. Subject to the following Terms of Service ("TOS"), BSharpTricks.com provides users of the Site with access to a collection of piano and music lessons, piano and piano-playing resources, along with other instruments, and forums of users and subscribers (the "Services"). BSharpTricks.com reserves the right to amend these TOS from time to time and at any time. The most current version of the TOS posted at BSharpTricks.com/ tos shall control, and users are responsible for reviewing the TOS to ensure knowledge of such modifications. Use of the Services by a user shall constitute that user\'s acceptance of these Terms of Service.

BSharpTricks.com Services

BSharpTricks.com provides two levels of access to the Site and its Services. Any visitor to the Site will be able to access only basic information about the Site and the Services of BSharpTricks.com. Site visitors may register to use the Site by providing basic information to BSharpTricks.com, and registered users receive limited access to Site Services. Registered users may subscribe to BSharpTricks.com Full Access. Subscription requires periodic payments to take and remain in effect. Subscribers agree to pay for the subscription period selected at the time of purchase. Subscribers will receive a confirmation notice upon their original effective date. It is the subscriber\'s responsibility to review the notice to ensure that it accurately reflects the requested subscription period.

Subscription renewal is automatic, and subscribers authorize automatic renewal of their subscriptions until cancelled. Subscribers can cancel the automatic renewal of their subscription at any time. To do so, contact us using any of the methods described at BSharpTricks.com/ contact.php and provide your account username and password. Your account will be canceled at the beginning of the next billing cycle. You will continue to have access to the website until the end of the current paid month

Reservation of Rights

BSharpTricks.com reserves the right to terminate and/or cancel subscribers\' subscriptions or access to the site at any time for any reason.

 

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