Theory

This is the 'academic' part about learning music, or mastering any instrument, if you may. But essential, and necessary, for any good musician. The most brilliant composers of classical music were masters in their understanding of music theory. They sought to expand, challenge, and even outrightly break the rules of theory through their written compositions. (Now you know, they didn't become famous just because they died.)

Part and parcel of teaching music is that each year, I have the opportunity to put some students through the theory examinations. Now exams are not fun for most I know, but teaching theory gets me quite excited. It is truly a fascinating subject, with plenty of intellectual concepts providing great stimulation for the mind. It never fails to amaze students when they first come to understand the circle of fifths, and how all the key signatures they had been memorising since childhood are all interrelated. 

Theory is simply amazing because it is a language of its own. To put on paper the sounds we hear, to translate them from the intangible to something which can be recorded in written form. Sometimes in great detail, with a high level of sophistication. This is a language which like any other, takes years to master, and even more to fully appreciate the nuances within.

So students and teachers of music alike, never ever neglect this musical language in the course of music education. It may be all just black and white on paper, but without it, it would be hard to pass on the art of producing beautiful sounds of music, generations after generations.

Accompaniment

Actually early this year I had already started on a couple of accompaniment jobs, just never got around to writing about the experience.
It all came about rather by chance. The boss of the music school I work in is a violin teacher, and he approached me to check if I could help a couple of his students in their violin exam as accompanist. I haven't done this officially for money before, even though I've played accompaniment many times in ensembles, choir and other instruments back in school days. Nonetheless, it didn't seem too daunting a task and I gladly took on the work.
It has been really fun actually, the interaction between two instruments and players reminds me again how making music in a group really multiplies the fun element in music making. In addition to the music exams, I also helped out in the annual music school student recital, accompanying the little violinists on the piano, as captured below.

"Lost in Translation: Life in a New Language" by Eva Hoffman

There is a passage about piano playing in the above memoir which I find particularly beautiful.

"  Although she never raises her voice, and is unfailingly kind, Pani Witeszczak exercises great authority over me. She is the first in a sequence of music teachers to whom I owe the closest thing I get to a moral education. In this intimate, one-to-one apprenticeship -- an apprenticeship mediated through the objective correlative of music -- they teach me something about the motions and the conduct of my inner life. When Pani Witeszczak attempts to convey to me what tone to use in a Bach invention, or the precise inflection of a theme in a mazurka, she is trying, indirectly, to teach me the language of emotions. "Music is a kind of eloquence," she tells me. "Ask yourself what it says here. See? This is like someone pleading. And here is someone is getting angry, and more and more angry, and trying to persuade somebody else, who is not listening." 
   It is that speech that Pani Witeszczak tries -- by cajoling, by explaining, by guiding my hand -- to tease out of me. Like all teachers in Poland at that time, she emphasizes the importance of tone, and I soon find out why: tone, I discover, is something about which I cannot lie. If I do not feel the kindling of a fire as I play, my tone betrays me by its coldness; if I do not feel the capricious lightheartedness of a scherzo, my tone turns wooden in spite of my best attempts to feign playfulness. By some inexplicable process, the precise nuance of what I feel is conveyed through my arm to my fingertips, and then, through those fingertips, to the piano keys, which register with equal precision the slightest swerve of touch and pressure. I gradually learn, though, that expressing this musical speech involves a paradox. For if the spirit is to flow into the keys through the conduit of my arm and hand, it has to move in the other direction as well -- from the keys info my arm and soul. Pani Witeszczak's ideal is to make the music sound as if it were playing itself. It is to that end that one has to relax, relax as much as possible -- relax one's arm and one's self, so that one can become the medium through which the music flows as naturally as melting snow in the spring. "Relax," she keeps saying. "All you have to do is let the music be itself." But there is a further twist of the paradox -- for such freedom, such receptivity can be achieved only through the rigor of controlled technique, if I don't ahve to worry about just how I'll execute the next passage, and whether I can manage a jump or a trill. One's fingers can become boneless conduits only if they've been made very strong first. Music may express the deepest truths, but it expresses them through a material medium, and in order to say what I want, I need to bend the physical medium of my arms and fingers to my will. To that end, Pani Witeszczak insists on the virtues of strict, daily discipline. 
...
Music -- philosophers have known its dangers -- inspires me with such grandeur that I think I know what inspiration is about. As I progress to pieces by Mozart or Chopin or Beethoven, I begin to feel in possession of enormous, oceanic passions -- anger and love and joy and grief that surpass merely being angry, or happy, or sad. ... I understand all emotions, no matter how raging or large. If I can express the passions contained within a Beethoven sonata or the Chopin Berceuse, then I know everything about being human. Music is a wholly adequate language of the self -- my self, everyone's self."

@15

Can't believe that we are almost through a quarter of 2010 already. The student number has hovered at about plus/minus 15 and has been keeping me BUSY, to say the least.
This March 2010 season I had 3 students that took exams, one was Grade 3 practical and the other two were Grade 5 theory. The student that took practical achieved a merit after just one year of lessons (he had never learnt piano prior to starting with me) so it felt quite good to have produced such results in a somewhat short period of time. I'm eagerly anticipating the theory results, as this is thus far the highest grade I have taught since switching over full time to teaching. Hoping for the best! 

Music School

Besides freelance teaching, I have started giving instruction at Sovi Music School located about a 10 minute walk from my place. Anyone interested to learn in a studio setting most welcome to register and request for my services.

Hear thee, hear thee

Students come and go, business rises and falls. All part of life and making a living. These days the dust in switching careers is beginning to settle. Sometimes having a more stable routine is good, but the freedom to be flexible is even better. Free will is such a wonderful gift.

Yes!

Got a new student starting next week! :-)

The Business of Teaching

Now I understand why people say teaching doesn't pay. Come summer, and students take off for one/two months.

Nonetheless, the process and joy experienced in training a child to become an independent, motivated pianist who simply enjoys his/her learning is quite something to relish. For the first time today I had an 8 year old girl tell me "finished already?? -- Today's lesson seemed so short..."

Children can be real brats at times, but it is the small things they do that make you smile. One of my students on summer vacation now is a bossy little 5 year old girl, but about a month back, she decided that "Teacher Millie" is quite alright, and gave me a big fat hug at the end of the lesson. :-)

So well, despite the lack of dough, I will persevere. After all, what is needed is just to FIND MORE STUDENTS!!!

Lost 3

Down to 7. :-(
Adults have been shown to demonstrate less commitment than children.

Breaking a Ten

It's exactly 2 months since finding 10 students. Then because of my vacation back in April I've been sitting on making further efforts to recruit more students. Inertia is not a good permanent place to be, so I've resolved to do something about it after this weekend. Enjoying it while it lasts. :-)

No Pay Leave

Working freelance has a downside. No work, no pay.
So I discovered after taking a week-long vacation to the Philippines, and falling sick after getting back. After spending money during vacation, it was no fun battling illness today to earn some dough back. If my current chest congestion doesn't go away after tonight's rest I might go see a doctor tomorrow, which means spending more money, and probably earning less (if I don't feel well enough to make it for lessons).
The old adage that every job has its pros and cons rings true...

A Whole 10

Yes I know, it's been awhile since I posted anything. I've been really busy transiting, to be honest, just getting used to a new routine and schedule. Lots more running around, but all good and interesting.
I now have 10 students. It's almost impossible to keep track of everyone of them nowadays. I have to diligently refer to their notebooks each time we have a lesson to remind myself what we did the previous week. Lots of interesting experiences really, but will share them more when I've had time to consolidate my thoughts and see some sort of pattern beyond 'do re mi'.

Perfect 7

I now have 7 students. How it went from 1 to 7 so quickly must surely be God's blessings. A few would start mid-February just after I leave my current work. The rest would start in March.
But yes, SEVEN is a great number to begin with, and hopefully with more focused efforts in the near future, more would come.

Why Teach?

This happened at the cocktail reception of my cousin's wedding two weeks ago. His niece, (my niece too), cajoled me into playing the piano sitting idle, whilst guests mingled with their drinks and slowly took their seats in the ballroom. I used to teach this niece and her brother before their family moved to Punggol which was too far for me to travel weekly. That was a good 4-5 years ago and she hadn't heard me play for awhile.
My niece watched with fascination as I played, and when I ended the first piece she blurted out, "Auntie, you really enjoy playing the piano, don't you?"
I smiled at her and nodded, proceeding to the next piece.
A small crowd had gathered around the baby grand, and as I ceded to some song requests, my niece told someone standing next to her, "I'm proud to say this was my teacher."
I almost stopped playing just to hug her.

After 3 Months

I'm quite pleased to update that after 3 months my student has learnt just about all the scales she needs to know for the Grade 1 examinations. In addition, she has started learning 2 out of 3 exam pieces, and is making fine progress in them. I'm quite confident that she should have no problems passing the exams for Grade 1 later this year.

With the new work situation I'm facing now I'm looking to actively source for students to teach on a private basis, to see if I can build up a base before leaving. So if anyone knows of people who want to learn piano (children of all ages, even adults), do help put us in touch, and I'll be happy to offer my services. Especially if they live in the western part of Singapore. :-)

Grade 1

I studied the Grade 1 theory syllabus today.
This first month of teaching has gone on well enough and it was encouraging to hear from my student that after her one week holiday (last week) she had spent 1.5 hours practising yesterday after school. :-)
Nonetheless, I haven't really been formally teaching her theory. I've always incorporated it as part of the lesson. As we embark on scales, or a new piece, I make it a point to teach the various theory aspects such as time signatures, key signatures, how tied notes work, treble & bass clef note reading etc.
But today's study helped to see where to draw the line, so I don't overload the poor student with too much, or too difficult, theory concepts she would not need to know for Grade 1, or may find too difficult to grasp. Today's studying also revealed to me some gaps that I would need to fill in lessons to come. All in all a productive study session today.

First Lesson

My first lesson with my first student took place last Friday. It was really more a "getting to know what you know" session, testing out her current level of knowledge/ability with the keyboard and music-notation. Now I have a good idea how to do the lesson plans, and we probably need to change location of the lesson to my place, since she doesn't actually have a proper piano. (Unless she trades in her keyboard for a piano sometime soon.)

First Student

I have my first 'official' student starting in October. A 12-year old girl who has some prior knowledge of music/piano, but now would like to take the graded exams. :-)

Professional Development Programme

The most widespread music examinations board here in Singapore is the ABRSM and every so often the board would organise Professional Development Programmes (PDP) for music teachers in UK and around the world.
I went for the PDP 2008 today held at VCH and was quite an informative seminar on the 2009/2010 piano examinations syllabus.
The seminar was not FOC, participants have to pay S$100 to attend, but we do get a bunch of materials, handouts and advice on music pieces. As a colleague of mine told me, this was my first investment into the music teaching career and I really couldn't agree more.

University of Melbourne Applications

My explorations of possibly studying music therapy came to a roadblock recently. By chance my colleague found a newspaper advert publicizing the auditions held by the Uni of Melbourne professor for music degree applicants, which led me to renew my explorations in embarking on this course of study/work.
I surfed online and realised that Melbourne offered a graduate diploma in music, and I thought to myself that perhaps I could do a grad-dip before applying to do a full Masters in music therapy. I emailed my idea to an Australian music therapist based in Singapore whom I had previously corresponded with, and she put me in touch with none other than a music therapist lecturer in Uni of Melbourne!
Through this lecturer I got to know that my current undergrad degree actually qualifies me to apply directly for the masters program. This cheered me on and knowing that I could apply with a fee waiver through OAL made me think even more seriously about actually doing it.
BUT, after corresponding with the lecturer some more to clarify some details, I came to a realisation that some of the application requirements for the course were quite daunting. Amongst these include:
1) Getting an academic reference AND one from a person who can attest to my musical ability. The latter I could get from my music teacher. But the former, I think my professors back in Cal would be hard pressed to even remember my name, nevermind write me a good recommendation.
2) The vocal part of the audition requires me to sing and play accompaniment on the guitar at the same time. Now sing and play the piano I can. The guitar, I don't know HOW to play one. And apparently it is an important part of the profession!
So, BIG roadblock. To do music therapy I have to learn the guitar. How easy is that??