Why study classical music?
In today's society, we tend to take things for granted, it takes more patience and time to discover the benefits of classical music. Once you fall in love with classical music, you will never be separated from classical music again...
Classical music is a Western musical tradition with huge importance to human civilization. The inheritance of classical music in these few hundred years mainly relies on apprenticeship system. Many famous musicians such as Beethoven and Mozart learned from Haydn through this model, and Czerny learned from Beethoven etc... With creativity and perseverance, they are able to write beautiful music and transfer the knowledge to their apprentice. The main role of studying music is to discover the relationship between life and music, finding your own unique character and voice.
When parents and students have inquiries about my piano lessons, I usually ask these questions: Why would you like to study music? To obtain a music exam certificate? To win a competition? Become an established pianist? Or searching the meaning of life through classical music...
My teaching methods are as follows:
- Musical enlightenment
During the classes, I like to show videos and music to students, most of them are related to the repertoire that students are learning now, for example, if a student is playing a composer's repertoire, I would recommend that he/she listen to similar repertoire or other related works of that composer, and it is easier to enter the music world by keep listening.
- Build up efficient practice habits
Most of my students are diligent and hardworking. But I divide piano practice into two cases: effective piano practice and ineffective piano practice. The difference between effective piano practice and ineffective piano practice is that the former is mainly based on problem-solving and constant experimentation, and the latter is repeating the same mistake in the form of repeating out of no reason. This practice mode not only wastes time but also consumes enthusiasm for music. During my classes, I will teach students how to practice correctly and take problem-solving as the top priority for practice.
- Analysis skills
Music actually has rules, and they are constantly repeated, we humans are often deceived by these laws. My students are encouraged to raise music-related questions during my classes. By answering them, they will become more and more interested in music. Teachers and parents do not have to do too much to urge them to learn music, because the biggest motivation for learning music is curiosity and enthusiasm.
- Piano playing posture
One of the main ideas of music involves heavy and light, and many students basically don't understand this truth at the beginning. This idea is something I will teach at the very beginning of the lesson. Playing the piano is like breathing, there is inhalation and exhalation, tension and relaxation, we must understand this truth. Incorrect gestures while playing the piano will have the opportunity to become tenser, and finally, when dealing with difficulties, there is a big chance of hurting your hands. It has nothing to do with how many hours of technical exercises you practiced!
When I was studying in the UK, I studied with a Russian-trained teacher who taught me how to play the piano using the most natural forces and also introduced me to this rapidly progressive way of playing the piano, which unveiled the mysteries of many successful Russian pianists. The central idea is that the most natural forces actually come from our body, or gravity, and if we can use these forces to play the piano, basically we will play the piano very easily and effortlessly.
Also, he made me observe the singing tone of a piano, and how to create the most touching phrases by singing from the piano. The art of singing is what we needed most of the time.
Practice hard, play hard
I am a strong believer that music playing comes from actual life experience, and we should keep growing alongside with music. Most of my international musician friends who achieved great success enjoy their life while they are not performing. Our perspective towards music keeps changing throughout our whole life and we shouldn't only practice. We should find the best way to relax, and get inspired by other arts, history, caring about others. A balanced lifestyle is what we are looking for.
Hanon and Czerny, Burgmüller's Practice
There are many people who ask what is the function of practicing the above exercises. To answer this question, the first question we have to ask is, why do so few people perform the exercises of Hanon, Czerny, and Burgmüller? The answer is that these are not the best melodies or pieces for players and audiences to listen, and these exercises are a bit dull. We can arguably say that practicing these exercises is for the sake of difficult passages that appears in other music we played, so we have to separate and practice them. But it would be much better to practice these difficult passages while we learn a new piece that has great melody.
The functions of practicing Scales
Mainly speaking, practicing scales has two main functions, one is to understand how a piece is formed by scales, and the other is to achieve consistency and evenness of sound while we are using different fingering and to solve the imbalance between each note in a piano. Practicing without purpose is ineffective and a huge waste of time.
What we called a "good technique" is not only based on the speed of the music. It is more important how do you control sound, the touches of the keys, and also how to create music imagination.
Examinations
The examination has existed for nearly a hundred years, and the examination only can be used as a reference of your musical ability.
For example, we can put the Grade 1 standard on pieces of Grade 8 level, and we can put a Grade 8 level standard on pieces of Grade 1 level, what really matters is how you define music and your taste in music. Of course, we need to take the exam, but if you are rushing a deadline for the exam, you will actually missed out a lot of learning opportunities. Remember that in the past, composers composed music as a pleasure rather than an endless torture for human beings!
Communicate with parents
I enjoyed active communication with parents. I believe parents play a very important role to support music learning. I also encourage parents to participate in my piano classes, so that parents can understand my teaching method, sometimes parents learned a lot from my lesson and give me amazing feedback. In a long run, we must believe in children, develop their ability to practice on their own as soon as possible, and encourage them to perform, or doing competition exams when they are ready.
Listen to classical music and participate in concerts
Whether it is classical music, Cantonese opera or pop music, if you want to master the genre, you must listen more, nowadays that the information on the Internet is well-developed, it is much easier to gain access to classical music anytime everywhere, and I will continue to provide ways for students to rediscover these quality music. It is also very important to attend live classical concerts, compared to a few decades ago, Hong Kong has actually improved a lot, Hong Kong is able to provide some really high-quality classical music concert!
Perform! Perform! Perform!
Music needs to be shared with others to achieve the greatest effect, and we improve through performances. We have to keep performing in order to enjoy these beautiful music and discover infinite possibilities!