Dears,
I am thinking about to enroll in some piano lesson my 4 years old daughter.
Any suggestions about a place/teacher?
Thanks
Richard Saunders, a long-term British expat, is a well regarded teacher. Lots students from the American School. He’s based in the northern part of the city. I can give you his email if you are interested.
Here’s a link to an ad posted here the other day. She’s offering a summer program called “Little Mozarts” for ages 3-7.
http://forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.php?f=150&t=98629
THEY SAY that good manners cost nothing. Bollocks. I sent my daughter to a posh finishing school in Switzerland, and it cost me twenty bastard grand.
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Be the piano.
Gosh darnit. Reviving this thread because I need a different piano teacher. I was quite gobsmacked at what his new teacher was teaching him in his first lesson, and I after consulting with his old teacher in the UK I’ve concluded I’m not insane and this woman really doesn’t have a clue (and she’s come from the Suzuki Association too!).
Anyhow, anyone know of a piano teacher in the Wenshan or Da’an district who knows what they’re doing?
In my experience of Suzuki being taught in Taiwan, it’s very philosophically Eastern as was originally envisioned. In the West, Suzuki teachers adapt the program and incorporate more balance with Western notions, such as emphasis on note-reading and technical skills making it more credible in Western countries.
I have one experience “assisting” a junior-high Suzuki piano student who was quite far along in the program, like the last book. The mom brought me on to replace the last “assistant” who was a young lady that would repeatedly and harshly bang out notes and have him copy so that he could learn the piece he was supposed to perform in a month or so. I absolutely refused to do that when it was my turn. I encouraged him to look at notes by pointing, but was quite astonished that he lacked basic reading skills. Not completely, he could read some of it but there was an awful lot missing and he was playing Mozart sonatas and such. I had a really serious talk with mother about it, but she was flippantly dismissive, after all it produced results.
The performances from most of the students were actually pretty good, the teacher very old and experienced at this, but it seemed to me a lot like factory work. The mother had to be very involved and always pushing him, I could tell he hated the daily gruel as much as he hated all his academic homework and this was mostly mother’s dream. And naturally, all this “success” might never have materialized if it weren’t for the help of “assistants,” which are other piano teachers helping him practice and further teaching him at home, coz Lord knows he couldn’t do anything on his own without knowledge of notes. And it seemed all the students were well-to-do and had similar set-up to make it all work and bring it all together.
Of course, he had pride and joy after a successful performance as he should and gave him a boost through all that drudgery but it seems the process could be much pleasanter; after all kids do enjoy the frisson in competently reading the “code” by themselves without someone banging it out for them. The method appeals to Taiwanese parents who are looking for results, and the performances were pretty good. But this can only last so long as the teacher keeps on prodding them.
But in the end, he wouldn’t be able to go on and help himself attain higher levels and learn new songs without the aid of this teacher. In the West, we teach note-reading as a way to be independent, just as we teach reading skills in school so you can go on to teach yourself and learn more information throughout life and navigate your own way. But it’s cultural difference, an awful lot boils down to this.
Of course this is just only one teacher and one student, and haven’t had opportunity to observe more, but I don’t doubt this is the norm in Taiwan for Suzuki.
Yamaha are not too bad, they do encourage note-reading and I’ve been able to do much with former Yamaha students.
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If anyone can recommend a piano teacher (or guitar, we need both) in the Hsinchu area please let me know. We need a teacher with low expectations, he grew up in a school where he’s the only one who plays an instrument lol, so we were lucky to get 20 min practicing a day out of him.
I could be willing to go to Hsinchu one day a week if there were a group of 3 or 4 students interested to make it worth the bus fare. Or Taichung or other nearby city.
I forgot about one story. I was teaching a student whose younger brother was taking a Yamaha group class as he had friends there and thoroughly enjoyed the social aspect of it. They were having an upcoming performance and mother wanted me to help brother as he was struggling to make it sound decent. I helped him for about 30 minutes to achieve some more competency. They told me that the Yamaha teacher had him perform the very first as he was the best and demonstrated the great “success” of the Yamaha teaching method. I was amused and told the parents that he was chosen because I had spent 30 minutes with him one-on-one fixing and eliminating all his errors, which the teacher was apparently too busy to do in a classroom full of students. The parents didn’t respond to such as Taiwanese usually don’t like admitting brutal truths due to saving face or some sort of yin-yang principle being violated, but shortly after, I was teaching both brother and sister from then on.
The Yamaha method certainly works over time. Even so, I find that these group arrangements aren’t too efficient. I had another student as well whose little sister learned with me after flailing around a year or so with a group to no avail. But the social aspect is definitely a big magnet for them.