Chris Vance talks to Rival about how Playground Sessions Can Uncover the Musician Within

A musician is defined as “a person who plays a musical instrument, especially as a profession, or is musically talented”.

Giving this definition, the vast majority of us, wouldn’t consider ourselves musicians, or even musically inclined. As for myself, despite the desire to learn how to play an instrument, the only one  that I learned to master was the infamous Recorder.

I sat down with Chris Vance, Founder & CEO of Playground Sessions, an innovative software that teaches users how to play the piano online, and he shared that I was certainly not alone when it came to my lack of musical ability. In fact, “worldwide, less than 7% of people ever become proficient in playing music”. 

And before launching Playground Sessions Chris was one of those people. While he now boasts about being the company’s number one customer, he didn’t know how to play an instrument, and was a statistic; one of the 90% of people who purchased keyboards and guitars, only to place them under their bed or in a closet to catch dust within seven days.

Chris’s background was actually in accounting, finance, and marketing. He had worked on Wall Street and hated it, but would later use his experience in marketing at Procter & Gamble to launch Playground Sessions; drawing inspiration from the use of Rosetta Stone and Guitar Hero, as well as his desire to learn how to play an instrument. He excitedly mentioned the results of a survey that he had come across that stated that “85% of people would love to play an instrument”. He was definitely one of those people; as he had actually purchased a $500 Casio keyboard and was convinced that he could teach himself how to play the instrument by simply watching YouTube.

Expectedly, things didn’t work out, but the experience laid the foundation for what would become Playground Sessions.

So, what are Playground Sessions?

The name speaks for itself. When we envision a playground, it is a place of play, fun, being social, and as Chris pointed out, “where you may fall down and scrape your knees, but get back up”. While the word “session” denotes not only a class environment, but relates to jam sessions, where one would create music.

Thus, the idea behind Playground Sessions, is that learning how to play an instrument could be done in a fun, creative, and self-paced environment. 

Chris Vance and his collaborators, which include producer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer, Qunicy Jones and Grammy & Emmy winner Harry Connick Jr., have created an opportunity for those of us who want to learn how to play an instrument to easily do so. The joy of learning how to play an experiment seems much more accessible when a Beginner learner doesn’t have to seek out and try to cover the cost of private lessons, and can instead subscribe to Playground Sessions at a cost of $289 for a lifetime membership and begin learning.

The product is designed for people of all ages and for those who have never played an instrument. The product can be accessed via computer or iPad (and soon to be on Android and Iphone), incorporates music from all genres —from Miles Davis, The Beatles, Taylor Swift, to John Legend; and will have budding musicians learning to play music, “not by understanding theory or reading music, but through an emotional connection where they will learn to play a few notes”. Chris explained that the objective is to “learn the music and get into the rules later, after you feel the music”. 

Chris had to defend this unorthodox approach to learning how to play music. For many, including Quincy Jones, music is something that should be held in high esteem. In other words, “it's not a game”. Chris eventually won Quincy over by showing him his prototype and sharing his inability to play any instrument prior to using Playground Sessions. 

He had won Quincy and others over well before the unprecedented 2020 coronavirus global pandemic locked us all into our homes, left us feeling isolated, with too much time and idle hands. They knew that they had the perfect tool to help cope with the worst public health crisis in over 100 years, and the decision was made to make the product available for Free for 30 days.

And what happened next is inspiring and miraculous.

As the transmission rate of the coronavirus began to grow, and countries closed their borders, over 7,000 people in 52 countries had subscribed to Playground Sessions, and participated in the Virtual Piano Recital. As part of this historic campaign they learned and played Josh Groban’s, “You Raise Me Up”. 

As Chris shared, Playground Sessions provided learners with a great distraction from the realities of this precarious and difficult time.”They got so much out of 30 days and were able to stick with learning something new……and when they submitted their videos for the recital, they had no idea what to expect”. 

And neither did the team at Playground Sessions. It took them almost a month to edit all of the submitted videos.The end result was a beautiful symphony of sound, where 100 pianos could be heard at once; all created by novices who only had 30 days to learn to play!

The only goal that Chris had with the campaign was to “at least have 50 countries participate in the recital”, and that goal was surpassed. During our conversation he paused to reflect on what was accomplished and shared that he doesn’t believe that “he would be involved in something that was so meaningful and monumental ever again”. 

The first person that he showed the rough cut of the Recital video to was his father, whom he hadn’t seen in some time, due to concerns around the coronavirus pandemic. Within seconds of viewing the video his stoic father was in tears. 

Playground Sessions’s historic Virtual Piano Recital reminds us that public health systems and governments may fail at effectively coordinating pandemic responses, our patience may fail as we deal with product shortages and long maneuvering lines in order to purchase groceries, and we may fail at being compassionate and using more positive language; but music will remain the universal language that will never fail us.

To learn more, subscribe to, and start making beautiful music using Playground Sessions check them out at: https://www.playgroundsessions.com 

WATCH THE “YOU RAISE ME UP” GLOBAL VIRTUAL PIANO RECITAL HERE

Meet the Writer

Byline: Cherise Charleswell is an unapologetic Black feminist, author/writer, poet, public health researcher/practitioner, radio personality, social critic, political commentator, independent scholar, activist, entrepreneur, and model; who doesn’t believe in thinking or staying in one box. Her work has been published in various magazines, textbooks and anthologies, websites, and academic journals; including The Hampton Institute: A Working Class Think Tank, New Politics, For Harriet, Black Women Unchecked, Zocalo The Public Square, Truth Out, Rewind & Come Again, Natural Woman Magazine, Kamoy Magazine, New Republic, Blue Stocking Magazine, Broad A Feminist & Social Justice Magazine, Obsidian Magazine, AWID Young Feminist Wire, Afro City Magazine, Role Reboot, Code Red for Gender Justice, Kalyani Magazine, Interviewing The Caribbean, TruthOut, and Our Legacy Magazine.

She is of West Indian descent, with heritage from various Caribbean islands, & is an avid world traveler, visiting over 30 countries and counting. She can’t wait for Da’ Rona to go away so she can get back to traveling.