Reply to Switching piano teacher

Forum Index » Elementary School-Aged Kids

Reply to "Switching piano teacher"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What is your and your kids' end game with the lessons? Competitions, awards, scholarships? Then you need to change to a teacher that supports those goals. But also they will not tolerate playing incorrect notes. Or is your goal a general understanding of music, getting good enough to be able to play what they want from movies, maybe do some jazz etc?
They are not mutually exclusive goals but get a teacher that wants to get the kids where they want to go[/quote]

I'm wondering the same thing. I have no idea what the guild and festival stuff is about, but it sounds serious and competitive. Exams, assessments, memorizing 15 songs, etc. You need to find a teacher who matches your level of expectations. But also it sounds like they are YOUR expectations and not necessarily the kids. They're only 11 and 8 years old! Are the kids unhappy with the memorization and the songs selected and the amount of time to practice?

FWIW, I have small hands and can barely reach an octave on my left. Can't quite reach on my right. Moonlight Sonata is a slog. My hands ache afterwards from the constant stretching. And there are some chords I simply can't reach. I have to choose which note to leave out. Just be patient and let them grow up. Is it the end of the world if she plays Moonlight Sonata as a 12 year old instead of an 11 year old? You sound like the epitome of a tiger mom :lol:[/quote]

We don’t prioritize piano, the guild is part of curriculum from our piano teacher, the special annual guilds have set song lists to follow ( 14-15). This year there’s no special guild so I asked for 10 only. Our current piano teacher isn’t the competition type, our previous one is. Sonata festival is very difficult to stand out from the 1000+ and get into the top 20, so it’s more like participation for us but not thinking about winning. I could be wrong about DD’s small hand being able to play moonlight sonata, she had played different song which she could just leave the bottom note out per teacher. I wonder if continue to practicing and memorizing old songs are necessary, since DD has limited time to practice new songs daily we only ask her to review some old songs once a week if DD has time. Isn’t spending time on new techniques and songs more important? The possible new teacher isn’t the competition type I think ( he’s an active performer and very likely won’t have time), he may not even do guild, but if he and our kids click, the in person class can definitely benefit our kids ( he comes to students’ houses; we don’t have to to travel to our current teacher’s house since DD has hours of school homework to finish daily). Maybe we should try a few lessons to see first then decide.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics