Piano

Bobby DeSantis was born and raised in the suburbs of Maryland just north of Washington DC, where his father, a talented trumpet player, worked as a professional entertainer as well as a music teacher.

At an early age (6) Mr. DeSantis father enrolled Mr. Bobby in accordion lessons at the music studio where he taught, with his friend, an accomplished and celebrated accordionist/composer, Dr. Carmelo Pino
(http://www.accordions.com/index/art/carmelo_pino.htm).

Dr. Pino was not the average accordionist as he has been credited with making a name for the accordion as a serious instrument and composing the world’s first Sonata for accordion and strings, as well as adapting Jazz and contemporary music for the accordion. With all of Dr. Pino’s education and accomplishments, he taught Mr. Bobby the importance of: the musical disciplines, the basics, the value of the classics, and the fun of playing contemporary music!

By the time Mr. DeSantis was in high school, he was playing in the high school Jazz band and performing in the semi-annual variety shows. His dad had helped him enter the contemporary music scene by purchasing one of the first electric accordions, which was a hybrid of the acoustic accordion and the electric organ.

After college Mr. Bobby served in the US Air Force. During this time, he decided to begin working towards transferring his musical talent and know-how of the accordion over to the piano, which is a common transition for many well-known pianists including the infamous jazz pianist Oscar Peterson.

After a few years of this transition, Mr. Bobby began offering his talents to his local church as an accompanist for their contemporary worship team. During this time, Mr. Bobby began teaching at a popular piano store in Palm Harbor, Keyboards Plus. He especially enjoyed teaching the beginning student, knowing how important a good foundation is; the key to becoming a good musician. With the same attention to detail and excellence, yet with great patience, as he had been shown by HIS teacher, Mr. Bobby became a successful piano teacher. To his credit he has taught dozens of students one of which graduated from Gibbs High School for the Fine Arts and who is now an accomplished piano teacher herself.

Currently Mr. Bobby works for the Pinellas County School system as a high school Math teacher, and serves as the keyboardist for his church. He lives in St. Petersburg with his wife and 13-year-old step son, his 16-year-old daughter, and has 10 children (by marriage), including 3 grandchildren, and one dog named Daisy.

Mr. Bobby is excited to be a part of the team at Creative Keys. He loves passing on the gift of music and is passionate about the far-reaching benefits of musical education.

TESTIMONIALS

“For the past 4 months I have been working with Bobby DeSantis on learning the play the piano. I have enjoyed Bobby as a teacher as he makes sure that I am successful in hitting my goal that I want to accomplish. He is truly the outside voice that is in my head, saying I need to get this right before I move on. As an adult learner he is open to answering my complex and somewhat interesting questions as I tend to look at things in music that make sense to me. Since, the 30 minute lesson was not enough I moved to hour lessons with Bobby to help me nail down the needs for the basics, so that I can accomplish my goal of being able to play classical music. I would recommend Bobby as a teacher.”