Hans Christian Andersen once said, "Where words fail, music speaks."

Bryan Johnson, a tutor from Coraopolis, is hoping that quote is true for students who listen to his new songs about math.

After working for more than four years to perfect the tunes and taking a course in song writing, harmony and piano from Tom Blobner at Duquesne University, Johnson's 17 math melodies have been published on the Internet.

Each song on the CD, New Horizons, covers an essential topic in fractions, decimals, percentages and equations in a fun and entertaining way.

Some of the songs include Johnson's first -- "Number Zero" -- along with "Comparing Fractions," "Subtracting Mixed Numbers" and more.

To produce the CD, Johnson twice traveled to Nashville, where studio artists recorded all the songs. Johnson wrote the music and lyrics.

To order the CD, musical math lovers can log onto www.mathmelodies.com.

But, music isn't the only way that Johnson believes struggling students can learn math.

A tutor since 1990, he has taught more than 300 students, taking many from failing grades to As. His secret, he says, is to hand over the controls to the student.

"There is a turnaround when students get actively involved with their studies. Students turn to the page in the book and say, 'this is what I want to learn,' and we start there," Johnson says.

He says sometimes the classroom is not very conducive to learning, with the distractions that can occur such as discipline problems, recess and more. With a tutor, the student gets 100 percent math.

Another problem students might have is forgetting the material they have learned from year to year.

Since math builds upon itself, students need to learn, grasp and remember the previous lessons or they won't be able to relate the old lessons to the new material.

Over the years, Johnson has found that students are having problems with one area of math because they haven't sufficiently mastered the lower level skills. He says teachers don't always have the time and resources to bring every student up to date.

That's why Johnson believes review is so important, and one of the reasons he offers free review and also SAT prep in the summers so that students can be readily prepared when they go back to school in the fall.

"Individualized math review is best," Johnson says, and, surprisingly, it doesn't take much time for progress to be realized.

Johnson started tutoring with Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Counsel and Focus on Renewal. He also hosted the GPLC group in Sewickley.

Since 2005, Johnson also has been competing in Robbins Trading World Cup Championship, a stock market competition. This year he has tied for first place.

"The opportunity to reach out to people needs to be met, he says, "and I feel the purpose of schooling is to show students how it feels to succeed. When they succeed once, it is easy to repeat that feeling."

For more information, call Johnson at 412-262-4067.