I resumed my own piano lessons again with a new teacher since I just moved away from Ottawa to a small town. Her name is Maggie too, the owner of Riverside Music Studio.
She has a different approach to how songs should be learned. "Always begin hands together", she says. She recommends listening to a recording only after I've had a chance to evaluate (play it through) myself. We've been spending alternate lessons on pure Sight Reading. Her rules are rather strict - sight reading must be played correctly, at the correct speed, dynamics and hands together. It seemed insane at first, and nearly impossible. However after a few quiet moments of pre study. it was nice to play something different from Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and a Chopin Mazurka.
My favorite genre to play is definitely Bach Inventions and Sinfornias. Cracking one open is like solving a tricky mathematical problem. It's mind bending, it's catchy and clever. The one I'm working on right now is Invention No. 13 in A minor. I played it for Maggie at the lesson and she asked me to play it on the Roland digital piano in Harpsichord mode. Wow, it was like a time machine and I was transported "Bach" in time.
Don't worry, I'll be Bach to practise piano and blog again after such a long break.
I am a new Suzuki Piano Teacher with many years of experience teaching classical piano at the beginners and intermediate levels to children of all ages. I am creating this blog to capture some of my rough notes from teacher training, pedagogy books, workshops and experiences from my own studio. The earlier entries are taken from the lesson notes for the pre-Twinkle level class I had taught outside the formal Suzuki method. Your comments and feedback are most helpful. Enjoy!
