I remember when I was sitting my grade5. I was terrible at sight reading and I had a teacher who militantly made me have sight reading lessons- no fun, nothing else, just sight reading. And I hated it. And I told my mother that I didn’t like piano anymore and didn’t want to do my grade 5.
So we quit lessons for several months until I realised I missed it…but by that point I had forgotten all my grade 5 songs and my technique was very poor. In comes a new teacher, a fun teacher who made me focus on all my weaknesses (including sight reading!) but connected with me and within a few months I was practicing 1 hour a day of my own accord and back in love with music.
Now I always look back at those months without lessons as a waste. Such a waste of time and potential. And all because I had a bad teacher! A teacher who didn’t see my needs and didn’t read that something was dying inside of me with every lesson and to change things up a little. I have been a teacher myself since 2000. I know how to make a lesson fun and rewarding and still focus on difficult topics that need to be covered.
Essentially my point here, is that that teacher could have ruined a career that is now 100% about music. I teach piano and run Key Lessons- none of which would have happened if I let that teacher ruin my love for music. I went on to achieve grade 8 and then a degree in Music- and to think it could have stopped pre- grade 5 .
But from that I have learnt to look for something special in my tutors to avoid that situation ever happening with this company – My motto is to seek the young at heart- in that they have energy, passion and excitement for music which then always passes down onto the student! If only I had teachers like that when I was growing up!
