All About Choosing Piano Schools And Teachers

[sleepy]

waiyean:

At what point do you expect your children to be able to sit down and practice without parent or adult sitting beside them? Is it mostly dependent on age, grade?

Hard to say at what age or which grade. For my dd2, she prefers me to sit on the sofa to watch her practise even though I'm in absolutely no position to spot her mistakes. She seems to be quite well aware of her own mistakes. I will chip in to offer my encouragement whenever she feels frustrated for not perfecting certain notes. Again, I've no idea why those notes are not perfect to her (sounds alright to me :scratchhead: ) but I guess she just wanted my presence to cheer her on. Several times during her routine practice, she will come over to the sofa to hug me to 'recharge battery' - quoting her words

For my dd1, she prefers to practise alone in the study room. And she usually picked the time slot when I'm out of the house to practise. I only spot check on her once a week just to make sure she didn't cut corners & skip those exercises that she finds boring

[sleepy]

fatbeary:

Some students usually have interest in piano playing, but when it comes to grading, they'd tend to feel stressed and the interest wears off. Children usually likes playing songs they know, like nursery rhymes etc.

On the contrary, my dd2 needs exam to be motivated. Whenever we sign her up for exam, she will be super motivated to perfect the exam pieces & doesn't mind playing the same piece repeatedly till she's completely satisified. She's a perfectionist in that sense.

And for those levels where she skipped exam (still go through the techniques as well as exam pieces), she is so slacked that there's minimum improvement and she kept complaining she's super bored playing the exam pieces and entertained herself by playing fun pieces instead of putting in modest effort to practise scales or exam pieces

[PhoBIA]

waiyean:

At what point do you expect your children to be able to sit down and practice without parent or adult sitting beside them? Is it mostly dependent on age, grade?

It depends on the individual child. Some children are already independent at p1. They will remember everything teacher says. Some children at p3 are still blur.

The best is to understand your own child. To be on the safe side, even if they are independent, still check teacher's notebook regularly.
Children must know that parents and teachers have a channel of communicating so they will not dare to slack.

[ammonite]

agree that it depends on the individual. Personal interest and a perfectionistic streak make a lot of difference.

[Imami]

fatbeary:

Maybe you could get your kid started on any musical instruments he likes, and learn pieces that he is familiar with first. He may get more interested after that!

pirate:

When DD was at this stage, I bought her the cheapest Yamaha keyboard I could find. You can't make great music with it, but it can play various pieces on its own, which fascinated her.

Hmm…. Maybe I shd set up the two toy pianos which have been forgotten.

Reading through the posts, it suddenly came back to me how my then infant loved to punch the keys on the toy pianos (quite big but they are toys). This was what got me into the “I must let you learn piano” mode. The toy pianos became white elephants after we shifted to our current place and were forgotten. Ok, I will get it done tonight!

[pirate]

It’s not a toy. It still cost about 300 bucks.

[Imami]

pirate:

It's not a toy. It still cost about 300 bucks.

No la, I don't mean yours. I am talking about mine. Mine are really toys.

I want to see if he is still keen on them, before I move on to get s keyboard.

[sleepy]

Imami:

Reading through the posts, it suddenly came back to me how my then infant loved to punch the keys on the toy pianos (quite big but they are toys). This was what got me into the “I must let you learn piano” mode. The toy pianos became white elephants after we shifted to our current place and were forgotten. Ok, I will get it done tonight!

My dd2 was totally into drum when she was a baby. Boi, she was so enthusiastic & really enjoyed herself making so much noice. We were relieved when she finally destroyed her toy drum set :rotflmao:

She cited 5 instruments that she's interested in learning. Drum is one of the instruments :nailbite:

[waiyean]

sleepy:

She cited 5 instruments that she's interested in learning. Drum is one of the instruments :nailbite:

What were the other four and which has she learn? How old was she when she showed interest in the 5 instruments?

[pirate]

Imami:

pirate:

It's not a toy. It still cost about 300 bucks.

No la, I don't mean yours. I am talking about mine. Mine are really toys.

I want to see if he is still keen on them, before I move on to get s keyboard.

Yah I know. The toys may be so horrible or off key that he may not want to play with it, so it may not be a useful indication. Not to mention that the sounds made by a toy is nowhere near that made by a real piano.

In DD's case, the toy piano did not interest her at all. The Yamaha keyboard, however, was a different story, especially since it also played some kiddy songs like Twinkle Stars, London Bridge and Turkey in The Straw. Come to think of it, she first heard the Grade 1 piece Camptown Race there. To her, the keyboard became the next cool toy. Think of it as equivalent to buying one big Lego or Playmobil set. Christmas is just around the corner you know... :evil:

We didn't get her a real piano until she was a month and a half into her NAFA preparatory course. They were like :shock: when we told them we don't have a piano at home. Yah, yah. I'm a horrible cheapskate parent.