Tag Archives: decision

Blog, Parents Discussion

Hard Questions

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In this rubric of Discussions we will be posting questions from parents,

some of current students, others from parents of students who graduated long time ago and already dealing with similar issues with their own children. All questions are made anonymous, try your best not to guess who asked them:)
Please, feel free to post your comments, advises and suggestions. You can also send us your own questions, we promise to change names and keep your confidentiality!

Q.

Hi, Anna,
In the past few months, while my son’s desire to play piano has remained high, his focus on practicing well has diminished (even when he’s practicing the required number of hours).   Maybe it’s due to age and other interests gaining his attention.  Despite trying to provide more structure (or even less structure), he has lost motivation to practice with focus.  He’s even started to be dishonest about how much he’s actually practiced.
When I speak to him about this, he says he wants to play to the level/expectation of your teachings, but his actions are not revealing this.  Have you experienced this before?  While I don’t want to give up on what he says he wants, I also don’t want to waste your time (and my money) if he’s not going to follow through appropriately. And, I don’t want him to feel pressure of not progressing, particularly in a studio like yours.  Any thoughts?

A.

Hi, Jennifer,
This is very common, it’s the age, your son is reaching the “terrible teens”. The best way I know is a very hard way, I can’t say I accomplished it fully when my own son was growing up. First of all, it’s important to adjust to your son’s process of gradually leaving his childhood and in the next few years becoming his own man. Which means he will be less and less receptive to basic rules and statements like “do because you must”; “be truthful because it’s right”, and so on. You already taught him these basics, now he is

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Blog, Parents Discussion

My child is ready to start lessons…or is she? (Topic 1, Part 4. What is involved?)

Prepare to change and adjust. It’s very important to keep up with your child’s progress and not let him stagnate.

You are looking at a starting just the way most people do: take piano lessons once per week for 30 minutes.  You think you can make a commitment to the driving, keeping up with assignments, and help him at home. Initial requirements are not so overwhelming, you need to establish daily routine of practicing for about 30-45 minutes. The total time can be split into two sessions of 15-25 minutes each, not too bad. It’s very important to keep positive attitude, at the same time be very firm that no day goes without practicing. You teacher will guide you through creative approaches

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Blog, Current Students, Current Students Pages, Current Students Performances, News, Parents Discussion, Students, Students Performance Videos

Michelle’s Unnerving Practice and result

Video

Michelle’s Unnerving  practice on the morning of her winning concerto competition performance

(Story by her dedicated and nervous mom, Sharon Yip) …..

Michelle had been practicing very hard on playing the Shostakovich Piano Concerto, did a pretty good job in recording (see the video posted), and was excited to go to the concerto competition. The day before the competition, she was feeling very sick, coughing and having fever. The doctor diagnosed her with bronchitis, and put her on antibiotics. “Oh no”, she said, “why do I get sick at the worst time?” We were all disappointed and didn’t know what to do. The next morning, she was feeling better after taking the medicines. After consulting Anna, we decided to let her try playing at the competition.
Michelle had been practicing very hard on playing the Shostakovich Piano Concerto, did a pretty good job in recording (see her video posted), and was excited to go to the concerto competition. The day before the competition, she was feeling very sick, coughing and having fever. The doctor diagnosed her with bronchitis, and put her on antibiotics. “Oh no”, she said, “why do I get sick at the worst time?” We were all disappointed and didn’t know what to do. The next morning, she was feeling better after taking the medicines. After consulting Anna, we decided to let her try playing at the competition. So……

She did a rehearsal at home.

As you can see from the video, she made bunch of mistakes, sounded messy in many places. She was embarrassed and frustrated (take a look at her facial expression when making big mistakes, and at the end …) She said:

“this is terrible! I’m not going to win anything!”

I reminded her about what her teacher always told her –

try your best, enjoy the playing, and don’t worry about the result.

She finally decided to go. The result? She followed her teacher’s advice, tried her best, and won the first place 🙂

Blog, Parents Discussion

My child is ready to start lessons…or is she? (Topic 1, Part 5. What is involved?)

In this post we continue looking through some factors which are involved in the initial decision to start music lessons

  • Are we as a family ready to make room for it? Again, this is a bit more involved than what you may see from a first quick look.

Of course, piano is the bulkiest choice and requires most adjustment. But in considering space for your child music study there are other things as well to keep in mind.  Where she practices needs to be a place which simultaniously gives her privacy and audience. Open space in a two-story family room may be intimidating because the entire household will hear her every mistake and her every stuggle.

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Blog, Hunter Mill Music Studio, Parents Discussion

My child is ready to start lessons…or is she? (Topic 1, Part 3. What is involved?)

In this post we continue looking through some factors which are involved in the initial decision to start music lessons

  • Do we as a family have money for it? it isn’t as simple if you consider the 10-12 years span! No matter how you go about budgeting this project, it will in the end cost your family many 1,000’s of dollars.

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Blog, Parents Discussion

My child is ready to start lessons…or is she? (Topic 1, Part 2. What is involved?)

Let’s first consider factors, because those are the easy part (believe it or not, a lot of parents ONLY at those), then later we will move to considering people:

  • Do we as a family have time for it? An adult must commit to drive a child to lessons at regular times week after week, every week. Some teachers prefer to work with kids one-on-one, then you have your 30 minutes to check your emails or get some work done while waiting outside. Other teachers have no preference as to who brings kids to lessons, then you can have a babysitter build it into her schedule.

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Blog, Hunter Mill Music Studio, Parents Discussion

My child is ready to start lessons…or is she?

This is a seemingly simple question, yet the one which needs to be approached with some understanding of what is involved and what are the common pitfalls.

This topic will have several posts, each tackling different aspects of the question. So, keep scrolling for more!

You want your child to learn the beauty and joy of music and be successful, right? This isn’t an “sample things to see what works for you” kind of decision, is it? It better be more serious than that because we can tell you right off that “sampling” music like you can sample sports and other activities will almost inevitably lead to your child failing it. There is simply too much envolved, playing an instrument is too complex a task to hope for a child to never bolt or say; “it’s too hard!”; “I can’t do it!”; or even  “I HATE piano!”

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