New tune for Code.org’s Hadi Partovi: CEO of piano education venture with unique method and big ambitions

Hadi Partovi helped kids around the world learn to code. Next on the playlist: piano.

The Code.org founder, who earlier this year handed off the CEO role at the nonprofit, announced this weekend that he is the new CEO of Payam Music, a Bothell, Wash.-based piano school that he plans to expand nationally with backing from Mark Cuban, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi (Partovi’s cousin), and Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer.

The news coincides with a 60 Minutes segment and a USA Today feature about the school and its teaching approach, known as the Payam Method. Instead of starting with sheet music and a classical repertoire, students learn to play using letters and numbers, choosing songs they already love. Traditional notation and theory come later as students progress through 18 levels.

“I’m taking my experience teaching computer science to hundreds of millions and connecting it to my lifelong love of piano,” Partovi wrote in a LinkedIn post on Sunday.

Partovi told USA Today that he and his twin brother Ali learned piano as children in Iran after the Islamic revolution, when the family was stuck at home. Their father cut out musical notes and taped them to the keys so they could teach themselves. 

After immigrating to the U.S. and moving in with their grandmother, Partovi could no longer afford lessons but kept playing on his own. He still composes his own music.

Payam Music was founded by Payam Khastkhodaei, a 32-year-old piano teacher who developed the method while giving lessons out of a converted home in Bothell. Partovi discovered the school when his son Darius enrolled and saw rapid progress after years of struggling with traditional lessons.

On 60 Minutes, Partovi compared the approach to Code.org’s method of teaching coding with blocks and drag-and-drop elements instead of ones and zeros and semicolons.

Payam Music has eight locations, in Washington state, California, New York, and Maryland. It has raised seed funding in the single-digit millions to expand nationally, USA Today reported.

Khastkhodaei told paper that about 97% of his students continue beyond the first year, compared with 15% to 20% in traditional instruction. Lessons cost $75 to $100 per session.