Music Appreciation · Piano Lessons · Piano Teaching

Teresa Wong: My early piano learning experience (2)

My early piano learning experience (1)

I felt very bad about myself (I was around 12 or 13), because my piano teacher didn’t want to teach me – I was not playing good enough for her.

But my mother didn’t give up. She finally found this one piano teacher at a pretty prestigious piano company founded by a very famous Chinese pianist back then. There, I met my very first Teacher.

Oh, and all this was done behind my father’s back (it’s ok, he knew it after a while, and he wasn’t mad, like we thought he would be).

This piano teacher was very different from all the teachers I had before. She was kind, caring, soft spoken, and very knowledgeable about piano playing. And she was very nice to me. We had to pay quite a bit more fee for her lessons but I can tell you it’s so worth it. It changed my life completely.

When I was a kid, I always excelled at school (we, my brothers and I, all did – it was a given). I was expected to do well or I probably would be kicked out of the house. So playing piano and passing exams with good grades was I believe important too (although I don’t really remember my father got mad at me not getting higher marks earlier on). At that time the previous piano teacher stopped teaching me, my grades at school were not so great (I went to middle school and it was a very tough time for me). So it was a huge blow to my confidence (and basically my worth) when that happened.

The new piano teacher opened up my eyes and ears to this new way of music learning and piano playing I had never experienced before. She never said anything unkind or negative about my piano playing, rather, she focused on showing me how to play better and understand music on a deeper level. It was an amazing learning experience. I looked forward to taking her piano lessons every week, even that meant I had to walk a long way there after school.

Eventually, under her tutelage, I got an excellent mark on my first piano diploma exam. It was a huge accomplishment and confidence boost for me. I felt finally, I was doing something great again, and I did it myself, of course with her teaching.

(to be continued)