All About Choosing Piano Schools And Teachers
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Hi Rains, just sharing with you. My Dd is also turning 5 years old in Aug. She started her 1 to 1 piano lesson with her teacher since last Dec 2013. I will sit behind her throughout the 45 mins lesson. During the theory, i will pay attention too and make sure that i understand. For practical, i will make it a point to look at her fingers placing. For her homework, i will sit down with her and go through the theory. Sometimes she can remember, sometimes she cannot. I will try to reinforce. We will practise playing the piano together. Sometimes she plays right hand then i play left hand and vice versa. I agree that 5 years old is still too young to go solo.
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As I have mentioned, I am in the process of recording a bunch of lower grades repertoire books. This morning, the first 16 pieces from Piano Time Pieces Book 2 are finally available. The pieces in this book are suitable for grade 1-2 ABRSM and often set as exam pieces for these grades. As usual, you will need to go the Youtube page to view the tracklist and the time stamps.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyL-gsUeN8Y][/youtube] -
rains:
Hi rains, it is strange to hear that the teacher does not allow parents to sit in. At this age, parental assistance and support are absolutely vital to ensure a comfortable and conducive learning experience.
No. The teacher doesn't allow parents to sit in. She scolds her for different reasons, according to my kid, eg. didn't do homework, not familiar with notes, and sometimes my kid doesn't know why she got scolded. There was also once when my kid said that the teacher scolded her for playing a song wrongly but she didn't know why it was wrong.
From a child who was enthusiastic about learning piano, she now finds it repulsive and associates piano with scolding.
Teachers will often emulate their teachers when first teaching their own students. So most likely, this teacher might have been trained under a dictator-like teacher. But of course nowadays the learning environment is significantly different and teachers should be willing to adapt and continually update themselves. -
Dreamaurora:
Hi rains, it is strange to hear that the teacher does not allow parents to sit in. At this age, parental assistance and support are absolutely vital to ensure a comfortable and conducive learning experience.rains:
No. The teacher doesn't allow parents to sit in. She scolds her for different reasons, according to my kid, eg. didn't do homework, not familiar with notes, and sometimes my kid doesn't know why she got scolded. There was also once when my kid said that the teacher scolded her for playing a song wrongly but she didn't know why it was wrong.
From a child who was enthusiastic about learning piano, she now finds it repulsive and associates piano with scolding.
For a young child, they need guidance in home practice. Lessons are only of a short time 1x/week, but they are home the rest of the 7 days. So it is important for the parent to be aware of what areas to work on and to be the teacher's partner at home by being the Home Coach. Learning will be more effective this way. -
Very young beginners especially the age of 4 or 5 preferably require teachers who should be much more encouraging and positive, at least during the first 2-3 months of lessons before they can be warmed up to this new experience of music and this new teacher person they will have to see weekly.
And yes following up at home helps just to sit by during practice.
With a different approach your child will like piano classes again. Dont worry about it. Good luck. -
I have shared this experience somewhere in another forum but I think this is more current. It should be a reference for those who wish to take our experience and analyse on their unique situation.
This is our youngest son's encounter. I would love to share my other two children's if you guys find this one interesting.
Our youngest son's music experience began with Music Medley School in SAFRA Toa Payoh. Some are bad, some are okay but most are good.
When our youngest child, Peter, saw my wife's friend child playing violin on the youtube, it somehow inspired him to ask his mum to sign him for violin class. However, my wife was not sure if he was really interested or just a 3 minutes desire when he showed his interest in it. Four months later, my son raised this topic again and this time, my wife was sure that he was determined.
Sometime early 2013, off he went for a trial lesson in Music Medley School as it was conveniently located near our house. I was told by my wife that there was a Japanese female teacher was capable to teach my son violin. He was enrolled immediately after the trial.
However, before the lesson began, S pass for the Japanese teacher was rejected. There was a replacement male teacher whose teaching method somehow did not allow the parent to enter the class when he taught my son. Being a young child filled with lots of energy, he climbed all over the place and the teacher could not handled him. After a few classes, the teacher told me personally that it would be good to withdraw my son off the class as he saw that my son could not focus in class and would also tarnish his reputation as a teacher. To me, I agreed with him on certain points that it could be my son was too energetic for any class of such. He was also complained by his Chinese Berries that he could not sit still.
With a discussion with my wife, we decided to withdraw him after the last lesson for the term. Before it could happen, the Music Medley principal called my wife to gather feedback on my son's performance. My wife told the principal that the current teacher maybe good at teaching young adult but not those of very young age. The principal was flexible enough to introduce another female teacher for replacement. The only problem was that we had to wait for her to come back from marital leave for another 2 months. My wife accepted on the conditions that those unused classes would be postponed till the new teacher started her first lesson with my son. It was quickly finalised and both parties accepted the proposals.
When the new teacher arrived, my wife and my maid took turn to bring my son for lesson as an adult was needed to accompany the child. I didn't really bother about my son's performance until one day, I was told to take him for lesson. To my horror, my son's performance was the worst and unrefined. He don't seem to know many things about what had happened in the class.
My wife and I had a discussion on that again. It was agreed that we would withdraw our son, Peter, from the class if he doesn't improve from the moment I took over all his violin class from then onwards.
From that day onwards, I learnt that my son was undergoing the Suzuki method. I was forced to learn violin with him. I also forced him to practice at home initially on my free time. Gradually he improved. This excited me to encourage him more. He was a bright child and learn things fast. His fundamental was very wrong and was corrected by the teacher and I re-enforced the fundamentals when he practised.
I had to bear with his Twinkle Twinkle variations for a period of 3 months. His first concert performance was very encouraging.
http://youtu.be/07DxMS_0hRk
That inspired me to drill him further and his interest grew at the same time. After the concert, the teacher taught the children one Christmas song before she had to clear all her marital leaves for 2 months. That was good as it was during the school holidays and we could do other things as a family, rather than taking Peter for weekly routine violin class. During this free time, using my limited knowledge, I taught him some Chinese and Christmas song to bow.
We resumed the class in February 2014. The first lesson of the year 2014 began with the same violin teacher, Ms Low Hui Xin, asking him what he had learnt during the last 2 months. He impressed the teacher with the song, \"月亮代表我的心\". Although it was near imperfection, my son was happy he knew how to play some song. Thereafter, my practise with him slowly intensify from 15 minutes to an hour a day, depending on my time availability.
Although we are still in Suzuki Book 1 today, we are happy with what we can do for our son. He could play some simple songs very well by now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H92WDnrMDUo
How a child can perform depends largely on his or her interests and determination, and the parent's discipline on him. The teacher could only give valuable guides but he or she could not perfect them as the adage goes, \"Practice makes perfect\". Effectively, my son violin class is only seven months but he can now perform several songs.
What we loved about Music school is that they have enough students to perform a music concert at the end of the year. This expose the child to public performance and raise the child's confidence in the musical instruments. For Music Medley School, we will be having another mini concert in the school this 21 June.
About the violin teacher, she is able to coach young student very well as she has tons of patience. She doesn't rush through the lesson simply because she wants them to advance fast. But she teaches what each song capitalises on, such as staccato, accents and allegro. Wow, tons of French words (or is it German, I am confused). And how such notes or tempo should be played. Now, I understand why violin is such a difficult instrument to play compared to the rest of them.
To us, we have 3 children of ages closed to each other. As a family, we will try to do things as a whole. We will get our eldest child as a pianist , my daughter as a singer cum dancer, my youngest child as a violinist, and the parent as the audience. We will sit and enjoy our children's performance sometime near this coming Christmas! -
rains:
My 5-yr-old doesn't want to learn piano anymore. She complains that the tutor scolds her every lesson. In the beginning when she was scolded, she would be very upset. Now she can't be bothered to be upset. She simply refuses to go for the lessons. If anyone has a patient and responsible piano tutor in the north, who preferably travels to her pupil's place, please pm me.
I don't think it's appropriate for teachers of preschoolers to scold . Shows that they don't understand how a child of that age works. Praise is important for that age group. -
nccng2001:
Not sure why you post this in a piano thread, but it's great that you are willing to share about your son's experience.I have shared this experience somewhere in another forum but I think this is more current. It should be a reference for those who wish to take our experience and analyse on their unique situation.
This is our youngest son's encounter. I would love to share my other two children's if you guys find this one interesting.
Our youngest son's music experience began with Music Medley School in SAFRA Toa Payoh. Some are bad, some are okay but most are good.
When our youngest child, Peter, saw my wife's friend child playing violin on the youtube, it somehow inspired him to ask his mum to sign him for violin class. However, my wife was not sure if he was really interested or just a 3 minutes desire when he showed his interest in it. Four months later, my son raised this topic again and this time, my wife was sure that he was determined.
Sometime early 2013, off he went for a trial lesson in Music Medley School as it was conveniently located near our house. I was told by my wife that there was a Japanese female teacher was capable to teach my son violin. He was enrolled immediately after the trial.
However, before the lesson began, S pass for the Japanese teacher was rejected. There was a replacement male teacher whose teaching method somehow did not allow the parent to enter the class when he taught my son. Being a young child filled with lots of energy, he climbed all over the place and the teacher could not handled him. After a few classes, the teacher told me personally that it would be good to withdraw my son off the class as he saw that my son could not focus in class and would also tarnish his reputation as a teacher. To me, I agreed with him on certain points that it could be my son was too energetic for any class of such. He was also complained by his Chinese Berries that he could not sit still.
With a discussion with my wife, we decided to withdraw him after the last lesson for the term. Before it could happen, the Music Medley principal called my wife to gather feedback on my son's performance. My wife told the principal that the current teacher maybe good at teaching young adult but not those of very young age. The principal was flexible enough to introduce another female teacher for replacement. The only problem was that we had to wait for her to come back from marital leave for another 2 months. My wife accepted on the conditions that those unused classes would be postponed till the new teacher started her first lesson with my son. It was quickly finalised and both parties accepted the proposals.
When the new teacher arrived, my wife and my maid took turn to bring my son for lesson as an adult was needed to accompany the child. I didn't really bother about my son's performance until one day, I was told to take him for lesson. To my horror, my son's performance was the worst and unrefined. He don't seem to know many things about what had happened in the class.
My wife and I had a discussion on that again. It was agreed that we would withdraw our son, Peter, from the class if he doesn't improve from the moment I took over all his violin class from then onwards.
From that day onwards, I learnt that my son was undergoing the Suzuki method. I was forced to learn violin with him. I also forced him to practice at home initially on my free time. Gradually he improved. This excited me to encourage him more. He was a bright child and learn things fast. His fundamental was very wrong and was corrected by the teacher and I re-enforced the fundamentals when he practised.
I had to bear with his Twinkle Twinkle variations for a period of 3 months. His first concert performance was very encouraging.
http://youtu.be/07DxMS_0hRk
That inspired me to drill him further and his interest grew at the same time. After the concert, the teacher taught the children one Christmas song before she had to clear all her marital leaves for 2 months. That was good as it was during the school holidays and we could do other things as a family, rather than taking Peter for weekly routine violin class. During this free time, using my limited knowledge, I taught him some Chinese and Christmas song to bow.
We resumed the class in February 2014. The first lesson of the year 2014 began with the same violin teacher, Ms Low Hui Xin, asking him what he had learnt during the last 2 months. He impressed the teacher with the song, \"月亮代表我的心\". Although it was near imperfection, my son was happy he knew how to play some song. Thereafter, my practise with him slowly intensify from 15 minutes to an hour a day, depending on my time availability.
Although we are still in Suzuki Book 1 today, we are happy with what we can do for our son. He could play some simple songs very well by now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H92WDnrMDUo
How a child can perform depends largely on his or her interests and determination, and the parent's discipline on him. The teacher could only give valuable guides but he or she could not perfect them as the adage goes, \"Practice makes perfect\". Effectively, my son violin class is only seven months but he can now perform several songs.
What we loved about Music school is that they have enough students to perform a music concert at the end of the year. This expose the child to public performance and raise the child's confidence in the musical instruments. For Music Medley School, we will be having another mini concert in the school this 21 June.
About the violin teacher, she is able to coach young student very well as she has tons of patience. She doesn't rush through the lesson simply because she wants them to advance fast. But she teaches what each song capitalises on, such as staccato, accents and allegro. Wow, tons of French words (or is it German, I am confused). And how such notes or tempo should be played. Now, I understand why violin is such a difficult instrument to play compared to the rest of them.
To us, we have 3 children of ages closed to each other. As a family, we will try to do things as a whole. We will get our eldest child as a pianist , my daughter as a singer cum dancer, my youngest child as a violinist, and the parent as the audience. We will sit and enjoy our children's performance sometime near this coming Christmas!
[quote]Sometime early 2013, off he went for a trial lesson in Music Medley School as it was conveniently located near our house. I was told by my wife that there was a Japanese female teacher was capable to teach my son violin. He was enrolled immediately after the trial.
However, before the lesson began, S pass for the Japanese teacher was rejected. There was a replacement male teacher whose teaching method somehow did not allow the parent to enter the class when he taught my son. Being a young child filled with lots of energy, he climbed all over the place and the teacher could not handled him. After a few classes, the teacher told me personally that it would be good to withdraw my son off the class as he saw that my son could not focus in class and would also tarnish his reputation as a teacher. To me, I agreed with him on certain points that it could be my son was too energetic for any class of such. He was also complained by his Chinese Berries that he could not sit still.
With a discussion with my wife, we decided to withdraw him after the last lesson for the term. Before it could happen, the Music Medley principal called my wife to gather feedback on my son's performance. My wife told the principal that the current teacher maybe good at teaching young adult but not those of very young age. The principal was flexible enough to introduce another female teacher for replacement. The only problem was that we had to wait for her to come back from marital leave for another 2 months. My wife accepted on the conditions that those unused classes would be postponed till the new teacher started her first lesson with my son. It was quickly finalised and both parties accepted the proposals.
When the new teacher arrived, my wife and my maid took turn to bring my son for lesson as an adult was needed to accompany the child. I didn't really bother about my son's performance until one day, I was told to take him for lesson. To my horror, my son's performance was the worst and unrefined. He don't seem to know many things about what had happened in the class. [/quote]This particular experience of yours highlight a common problem a lot of music schools face in Singapore. Shortage of properly trained teaching staff is a real issue that is exacerbated by tightening of labour flow in Singapore. Although Singapore has no shortage of talented performers, not many locals decide to go into the field, though recently there is a trend of working adults switching careers into teaching music (if they had obtained the prerequisite training earlier).
Some of my friends who run and manage music schools confided in me that they often have to make do with whoever had a modicum of understanding of teaching music. Very few music schools provide comprehensive training program for their teachers and new addition to the staff are often thrust into teaching immediately to take over an outgoing teacher's students. Yes, ideally, the teachers should be trained first so their methods and visions align with the school's, but the reality is without a teacher to fill in a vacant teaching slot immediately, the school risks losing all the students taught by that teacher. And yes, the risk of an outgoing teacher carting out all his/her students into private teaching practice is a very real one and it happened quite often.
So this is why it is possible to get vastly different experiences within a music school, even the established ones. On the positive side, at the very least a music school with a good principal can maintain a baseline standard by making decisions that will ensure some uniformity (for example by making the final decision whether a student should be entered for an exam after assessing him/her). And also in a music school, if a teacher is found lacking, another available teacher can be easily requested to see if the student responds better to another teacher.
[quote]There was a replacement male teacher whose teaching method somehow did not allow the parent to enter the class when he taught my son.[/quote]I have never really understood why some teachers (and music schools) do not allow parents to observe. Aside from obvious reason to protect the teacher, allowing parents to observe and take notes can help tremendously during the early stages of learning. And anyway, if the teaching method and approach is sound, the teacher should not be afraid to demonstrate it freely to observers. But to each his own.
[quote]When the new teacher arrived, my wife and my maid took turn to bring my son for lesson as an adult was needed to accompany the child. I didn't really bother about my son's performance until one day, I was told to take him for lesson. To my horror, my son's performance was the worst and unrefined. He don't seem to know many things about what had happened in the class.
My wife and I had a discussion on that again. It was agreed that we would withdraw our son, Peter, from the class if he doesn't improve from the moment I took over all his violin class from then onwards.
From that day onwards, I learnt that my son was undergoing the Suzuki method. I was forced to learn violin with him. I also forced him to practice at home initially on my free time. Gradually he improved. This excited me to encourage him more. He was a bright child and learn things fast. His fundamental was very wrong and was corrected by the teacher and I re-enforced the fundamentals when he practised.[/quote]I am a little puzzled by this. If your son has urgent fundamental issues that need correcting or not cooperating in lessons, shouldn't the teacher had made it aware to your wife or you much earlier rather than waiting for you to point it out? But thankfully, everything turned out fine as you took charge to help your son.
[quote]What we loved about Music school is that they have enough students to perform a music concert at the end of the year. This expose the child to public performance and raise the child's confidence in the musical instruments. For Music Medley School, we will be having another mini concert in the school this 21 June.[/quote]This is a great practice and all decent music schools and private teachers should provide regular opportunities for their students to perform outside lessons. It is not that hard yet I still meet plenty of grade 8 holders who had not done a single performance in their entire journey besides exams.
[quote]About the violin teacher, she is able to coach young student very well as she has tons of patience. She doesn't rush through the lesson simply because she wants them to advance fast. But she teaches what each song capitalises on, such as staccato, accents and allegro. Wow, tons of French words (or is it German, I am confused). And how such notes or tempo should be played. Now, I understand why violin is such a difficult instrument to play compared to the rest of them.[/quote]To play music musically well at the early stage is by no means an easy task. As someone who teaches piano and currently learning violin, I would say piano and the rest of the instruments are equally as difficult to play as violin. It's just that non-musical playing on a piano sounds more tolerable compared to violin, but to execute the musical details correctly on both instruments require equal amounts of concentration, discipline, and technical control. It is good your son's teacher teaches this instead of taking the easy way out. -
Dreamaurora:
I have never really understood why some teachers (and music schools) do not allow parents to observe. Aside from obvious reason to protect the teacher, allowing parents to observe and take notes can help tremendously during the early stages of learning. And anyway, if the teaching method and approach is sound, the teacher should not be afraid to demonstrate it freely to observers. But to each his own. [/quote]Can sit in lah. I'm not sure why Peter's parents were not allowed. I sat in 2 of that male teacher's lessons before refusing to go for anymore lessons with him. Wahaha.
[quote]There was a replacement male teacher whose teaching method somehow did not allow the parent to enter the class when he taught my son.Dreamaurora:
I am a little puzzled by this. If your son has urgent fundamental issues that need correcting or not cooperating in lessons, shouldn't the teacher had made it aware to your wife or you much earlier rather than waiting for you to point it out? But thankfully, everything turned out fine as you took charge to help your son.[/quote]I believe the maid did not communicate it back to the family.[quote]When the new teacher arrived, my wife and my maid took turn to bring my son for lesson as an adult was needed to accompany the child. I didn't really bother about my son's performance until one day, I was told to take him for lesson. To my horror, my son's performance was the worst and unrefined. He don't seem to know many things about what had happened in the class.
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Sorry anyone can recommend a brand of metronome to buy? Thanks!
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