About David

Nobody knows exactly when David was born, but rumor says he first appeared during Coltrane’s solo on My Favorite Things. Others swear they saw him jumping rooftops with Buster Keaton.
Either way, he’s here now, and he’s finished with writing bios in the third person.

I am David Magyel, a pianist and dancer living in Norway, with a surname that’s difficult to pronounce (at least for Norwegians).

I started piano at five because my parents dreamed of raising the next Mozart, but my teacher told them I should probably quit. 🙈

Looking back, I wasn’t exactly a perfect match for traditional piano training. I could read the notes, but I always tried to bend the rules. I never got to improvise or create my own music. And I don’t blame my teachers. They taught what they knew, and improvisation simply wasn’t part of their world.

Still, my parents wanted me to continue. I studied classical piano in Slovakia for twelve years, then moved to Hungary to study jazz, searching for the freedom I couldn’t find in classical training.

Even after my studies, something in me still felt locked. The real purpose was still out there, waiting for me to recognize it. Was I meant to stay within jazz, or to express my true self no matter the style of music?

After school, I spent years performing and traveling with all kinds of groups, from jazz to progressive electronic pop rock, searching for a sound that felt honest. I eventually realized that my path was really about true self-expression.

I wanted to translate my feelings into improvised music, feelings I couldn’t always express in words. And the more I explored, the more I understood that not all my emotions lived inside jazz or blues. They lived across many genres at once.

All this searching eventually led me to Bergen, Norway. Why Bergen? Because I am only happy when it rains.

Teaching wasn’t part of my original plan, but it kept finding me. Wherever I went, someone wanted lessons. So I taught people the way I wished I had been taught: with improvisation, self-expression, and freedom across genres, because different emotions need different musical colors. Over time, my students ranged from children to 90-year-olds, all discovering that piano could actually be fun.

To support them better, I built soundofemotions.com, now home to more than 640 lessons from beginner to advanced.

Later I began sharing solo arrangements and improvisation etudes on YouTube. Millions of views followed.
But the real method, the structure behind everything, is inside this curriculum I built.

That’s what I’m here to share.