ksraja69:

Thanks.

Wish good luck to your DD or DS.

Thank you. Already send you a PM.

@Ksraja69, you can visit this website:


https://www.nushigh.edu.sg/admission-n-outreach/admissions/admission-to-nus-high-school/admission-to-year-3

Selection Test consists of 1 hour of Maths Test and 1 hour of Science Test.

English Test & Selection Interview consist of 30 min of written composition and followed by a one to one interview with the candidate and a panel of interviewers.

There were 12 candidates taking the second round for the Y3 admission test this year.

That is a small world. You seem to know many people in this Music community.

Dear Phankao,


I saw in your last enquiry about who is learning the Suzuki's method.

Well, I am very sure that Peter is. Correct me if I am wrong. Based on the research and the discussion here on the Suzuki method employed, Peter's teacher is using every methods that had been brought about for his lesson.

Peter is not taught on Do Re Mi with all the different musical scale of CDEFGAB. Instead, he was taught on A0, A1, A2, A3 and so on. The teacher also encourages them to listen to the CD provided to keep themselves acquainted with the songs.

For example, the teacher coaches in 1-1 with an accompanying parent and a group lesson every month. She doesn't rush and she progresses according to the student's performance. She believes it is more encouraging to allow the young students to play songs and learn the fundamental along the way. In this way, students find it more enjoyable, rather than just drilling the monotonous fundamentals before picking up.

What I like about her teaching method is that she really goes in-depth in explaining a little new thing for each lesson and in practical, she gives tips and explains how to bow according to different nature of the musical notes, such as staccato, accents and different melodies. People, such as I, who has no musical background, will find this wonderfully useful.

I believe whatever method is being used is just a tool. What is more important is the chemistry between the teacher and the student, which helps to leap the progress of the student. For young students below the age of 10, a very important ingredient of the teacher is the ability to understand such group has little time spend on anything and hence patience and the child understanding of the teacher are important.

As for the Facebook video, yes, I have uploaded to the Youtube too so that you can see it.

http://youtu.be/07DxMS_0hRk

Thanks

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!

I am not sure if Suzuki method is a better training method over other methodology as I am not musically inclined nor exposed to any other methods.


However, I would like to share some of our experiences we had in Music Medley School in SAFRA Toa Payoh. Some good and some bad.

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.

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!