the one and only one enrichment for Renzo - Piano

About exactly a year ago, we brought Renzo to Yamaha music school for his very first enrichment class, and 6 months later, we withdrew him from the class due to the fact that the class schedule didn't work out very well for us, and he was not enjoying the lessons due to change of class and teacher.

So this time, on October 06, 2013, we finally manage to send him for his real piano lesson with a private tutor staying near to our place.

I guess many parents have the same questions in mind like us, Yamaha music school or private tutor?

Here's a great read:
http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Forum/2/topic/008222/Number/0/site_id/1#import

You have to believe that there's always 2 sides of the coin so there's no real right or wrong. So let me just highlight the cons (skip the pros as I believe people are more concerned about the cons when comes to such kind of thing, LOL) of these 2 options:

Yamaha Music School:
- One parent is required to attend the class together with the kid, for kids aged 4-6 years old , which is definitely time consuming no matter how much we parents love music, or rather say love the bonding with our kids.
- They do not teach  CDEFG, instead they use Do Re Me, there's a huge difference here because under Yamaha,  teachers focus on ear training and music appreciation, and they do not really teach much about how to read the notes, that means if it is a piece of new music, students won't be able to play it right away simply because they could not read the repertoires independently
- Teachers could not focus much on each kid as they have a whole class to take care of, hence bad hand posture and loud playing habit become  more and more common among kids

Private teacher:
- Since parents are not attending the class, we might not get to understand what was taught each time during class
- more expensive?


So the answer is pretty clear, we are getting a private teacher for Renzo!! Don't get me wrong, Yamaha Music School is definitely great, it's just that we prefer a different approach and arrangement for Renzo in this case. And we quickly bought Renzo a new Yamaha U1 piano which makes him, and his didi Rynus super excited!

We are lucky enough to meet this great teacher introduced by my sister. My niece has been attending Yamaha Music School for 2 years but my sister had the exact same concerns like what I listed above, hence she decided to switch her to a private teacher. It's in a way tougher for my niece as she needs to forget about all she's learned under Yamaha, but she managed to adjust quickly and her improvement is so obvious that even I know nothing about piano, I can tell by looking at her videos recorded and sent to my sister by this super caring teacher! That action of recording and sharing class videos from the teacher, addressed the one biggest concern I have with private teacher instantly!

Renzo enjoyed his first lesson, and his strong interest in numbers and alphabets definitely helped as writing / coloring is required for his age, and he could read the lyrics on his own when comes to learning songs. Practicing the song he learned during piano lesson has been added to his daily study routine at night, and it's pretty fun to hear little Renzo asking frequently, "Mummy, did I wash my hands?", that basically means he has just washed his hands and he wants to play piano!