Monday, March 10, 2008

Teaching @ Labour Day

Today I start teaching @ 10:00 am with Stanley, one of my adult beginner students. He just started his lesson about 1 month ago. He uses Alfred Adult Beginner's Lesson Book 1 and now he's almost 1/2 way. His goal is to be able to play classical pieces and he wants to take AMEB Exam.

Next, I have Stefanie @ 12:00 pm. She came at 12.15pm because there was a parade in the middle of the city so she had to find another way around. Stef is an adult advanced student and this year, she's taking Grade 8 Exam. Today, we started the lesson with scale & Finger exercises from Hanon and Tone, Touch & Technique by Max Cooke (My piano teacher) and then 2 of her Grade 8 pieces. Her technique improves alot than first time she started her lesson on August last year. Her fingers are much stronger and produce more beautiful notes than last time.

Christine Angelina came @ 3:15 pm. She was away from November 2007 to Singapore. She is taking an improvisation class for Pop, Musical & Church songs because she plays keyboard in her church and she wants to be able to play piano for relaxation. Today we started with C Major Scale (3rds & 6ths), Contrary motion, Chromatic, Arpeggios & Dominant Seventh. As with all of my students, I always suggest them to practice the scale as I suggested to gain strenght & finger control. Then I assigned Little Pischna # 1 for her to practice at home. As for the piece, she chose one of the song from "Phantom of the Opera". Her lesson finished @ 4:00 pm.

The last student for today will be Hendrik (12), who came @ 5:00 pm. When he entered the door, he wasn't as bubbly & cheerful as usual. He normally greats me with wide open smile "HI RIA!!" The lesson went as usual but this week he played many wrong notes & didn't pay attention to details: Dynamics, Staccato & even the fingering. I suspected that something is wrong. At the end of the lesson, I asked him whether he's okay today and he told me that he knocked his head while he swam just before he had his piano lesson.

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