Odette Bilby has worked in the music industry exclusively for over thirty years. Growing up in South Africa, she studied piano, percussion and pipe organ as a child. By the age of 16, she had already started playing professionally in orchestras. Two years later, she became the youngest ever permanent member of the South African National Symphony Orchestra, as Associate Principal Percussionist. Odette continued her musical education alongside working as a musician, earning a distinction for her bachelor's degree in musicology with the University of South Africa. She was the top student in her year. She loved performing, but also had an interest in the historical and harmonic path that music had taken over the centuries.

In 1998 Odette moved to London, United Kingdom, and began teaching piano and electronic keyboard full-time to both adults and children. One day, a student asked her, 'When will I be learning to play the sort of music that I listen to?' This was the catalyst for Odette to start developing a totally new way of learning music, composing new pieces that her students could relate to. 

Odette realised early on that the easiest way to fall in love with playing music, was to see (and hear) the positive results of a dramatic improvement in ability. Odette credits her own ability to become a professional musician at a young age, to her American percussion teacher in South Africa. 

"David Gooding throughly understood the importance of making rapid progress in playing, in order to reach a person's full potential. Almost immediately, he chose pieces for me that were 'complete' and performable. This is the aim of the Highspeed Piano & Keyboard Course too."

Odette is a full-time piano and electronic keyboard teacher in London, UK.