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My Student Did Not Practice Again

My Student Did Not Practice Again I am sure the sight of a student who did not practice again was not unfamiliar to many of us teachers. I understand that it is frustrating and could suck the joy of teaching; I do know teachers who threw in the towel because of this. I must admit that it was a sore point at one point of my teaching career, but I decided to adopt a more positive approach because I genuinely wanted all my students to have a positive learning experience. Let me share with you a couple of pointers that hopefully could provide you with better solutions to this issue. ·       Empathize and diagnose It might be an instinct for many of us to immediately ask “Why didn’t you practice?” in a disapproving tone when faced with a non-practicing student. We might even launch into a tirade chiding student or institute a penalty. Perhaps naively we think that the student would feel bad for disappointing us. But trust me on this, those actions are going to have opposite the effects
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CD Recommendation Olé México GNP Alondra de la Parra – Conductor Pitingo, Concha Buika, Lila Downs - Voice available on Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, Youtube Music Mexican conductor Alondra de la Parra’s latest project brought together three of the most decorated Spanish and Mexican singers for a grand celebration of Mexican songs. All singers were stellar but Spanish singer Pitingo stole the show in all the tracks he contributed. Clearly having a blast, his raspy tenor voice was both capable of great verve and tender lyricism as exemplified in the standout track Granada . Middle-aged Concha Buika and Lila Downs might no longer have the lush and seductive voices of younger female singers, but they made it up by having plenty of authority, maturity, and energy. In Amor Eterna , I thoroughly enjoyed Concha Buika’s pining for eternal love, her throaty voice conveying perfect amount of anguish and regret that is often missing from younger singers’ rendition of this piece. I could n
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  Returning to Performing as Adult Advanced Pianist – Part 1 – Addressing Tension and Technical Issues I think we all can agree that as a piano teacher that the benefit of maintaining a practicing and performing routine is immeasurable. But juggling this with long hours of teaching, family life, and other adult commitments is by no means easy. But sadly, and understandably, the number of teachers and adults who no longer practice and perform far outnumber those who do. If you would like to take that first step to start performing again, read on. I’m sure you were at one point of your younger life were a competent performer; any teachers who had studied for formal music qualifications had to be. You might even at one point be performing fiendishly difficult pieces like Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes or even piano concertos. You decided to start practicing again, resuming from the point where you stopped. And it soon dawned upon you that you could not move as agile as you used to, but
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CD Recommendations - Biała flaga

Biała flaga Hania Rani – Piano Dobrawa Czocher - Cello available on Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, Youtube Music When it comes to recommending contemporary classical music, most would probably suggest the usual household names like Yann Tiersen, Ludovico Einaudi or Ryuichi Sakamoto. But of course, there are so much more to discover beyond these popular few. Biała flaga is 100% Polish affair, featuring contemporary classical music from Poland and performed by Polish pianist Hania Rani and cellist Dobrawa Czocher. I chanced upon this CD by accident because I wanted to check out further what Dobrawa Czocher had recorded, and I was glad I did. Hania Rani herself contributed a few compositions of her own, but the spotlight of this CD is on the compositions of the late Grzegorz Ciechowski, who tragically passed away at the age 44 in 2001. Ciechowski’s music could be best described as Yann Tiersen on steroids. More neo-classical than minimalistic, each of his compositions featured here a
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Motivating a Young Pianist – A Quick Guide for Parents

Motivating a Young Pianist – A Quick Guide for Parents Most students probably only see their teachers once a week. While certainly an empathetic teacher could do wonders to motivate a young learner, daily support from parents is far more crucial to ensure consistent progress and maintain motivation level. This guide is written mainly for parents of young children. I’ve included important pointers parents would do well to know to support their children emotionally and psychologically as they began embarking on a long and arduous journey to become a competent pianist. 1.  Learning piano is hard and seldom fun. The first thing I always tell parents who are starting their children with me is that learning piano is not a bed of roses. Motivation and interest in the instrument need to be gradually and constantly nurtured. True, there might be minority few who would be naturally intrinsically motivated because they genuinely love music, or they simply enjoy the challenge of learning an
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CD Recommendations - Dichterliebe, Under the Pepper Tree

  Dichterliebe Yoosin Park – Cello Florian Uhlig – Piano available on Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music Dichterliebe on cello? Works surprisingly well actually. For her debut album, South Korean cellist Yoosin Park made a convincing argument for song cycles to be performed on strings more often. The secret ingredient here is her gorgeously pure cello ‘voice’ surprisingly very subtle vibrato approach. Her legato is also eerily effortless; hers is one of the cleanest playing I’ve heard of modern cellists. Every song in the cycle was a joy to listen to from start to the end. Other accompanying pieces in the album are equally competent as well. I’ve really enjoyed her sensitive rendition of Schumann’s Op.102 a lot as well, the second one in the set “Langsam” was a standout. Florian Uhlig proved to be an equal musical partner, though unfortunately his playing occasionally overpowered Park’s in livelier tracks. But overall, a solid debut and worth a listen. Under the Pepper Tree Sara Watkin
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Assigning Repertoire - The Balanced Approach

Assigning Repertoire - The Balanced Approach For the inaugural post of this blog, I am going to write about a topic that I feel is integral in piano teaching but strangely rarely discussed even in many pedagogical literatures. When it comes to choosing and repertoire for students, teachers often do this in linear fashion. Meaning, the next pieces a student learn would be incrementally more difficult than the current ones. So, for example, once a Grade 4 student completed Grade 4, they would move on the Grade 5 and only work on pieces set for Grade 5. Many teachers I know of follow this system, and to them it seems to be logical and fuss-free. But is it really? Consider that assigning repertoire this way means students would most likely be working only on pieces that are challenging for them. Motivated students might relish the challenge, but for majority of average students this might mean increasingly slow and frustrating progress that would gradually erode motivation. In addi
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