piano lessons, to continue, or not?

I am not sure if it is fated, somehow Renzo's piano learning journey has not been very smooth from the beginning. Since September 2012 till now, it's been almost 3 years and he has changed 4 teachers. First 2 from Yamaha music school and he followed them for a total of 6 months, just to learn music appreciation so he left Yamaha without being able to play a single piece of song. And after a 6 months break, he followed a home teacher for another 1 year, made some pretty good progress in terms of learning to read notes and getting the rhythms right with proper counting. And then we switched him to Ossia Music School for one on one lessons since last December. In a way, I am totally not impressed with Renzo's progress thus far. 3 years of learning is definitely not a short period of time but despite being able to read notes independently, his playing is still, nothing much to be shout out about...

According to the teacher Ms Yvonne, Renzo's progress is rather fast for his age, as he could read notes well. Well, what I love this school the most, is that the teacher communicate effectively with us through the record book. The first 3 months, I've been hearing all praises and Ms Yvonne has also recommended to let Renzo take the Grade 1 Prep Test which is going to happen this September. But recently, more often than not, I got the feedback that Renzo has not been practicing well, which is 100% true. We tried out many methods to encourage him, but often he's dreading his practice each week and we see an unhappy Renzo spending an hour in front of his piano, with probably the first 20-30 minutes whining about how difficult it is to play especially when he's required to use both hands. We all know that for sure, either Daddy nor I had learned how to play piano before and, we have no plan to pick it up moving forward, simply because, it's just too difficult!

So we fully understand Renzo's pain, it's not easy, it's never easy and it will not get any easier. But it's not meant to be easy anyway.  To encourage him to take up the challenge, I even learned a simple piece in less than 5 minutes from Daddy Chan, don't judge me on my hand posture, skill, or rhythm, I did this simply to prove to Renzo that as long as we are willing to, anyone can pick up anything new and difficult even if we know nothing about it.

Another effort we've made to get him into a better practice routine, is to shorten the practice time. Instead of letting him spend a full hour on a Saturday morning once a week, we make sure even if it's just a short 5 minutes, he MUST, touch his piano on a daily basis, no matter how busy his schedule is. I am glad that the boys have long formed this great routine after they are back from the childcare. So by 8pm they are all free to work on any kind of activities and sparing a short 5-15 minutes to practice piano, is not a problem for Renzo at all.

He seems to enjoy this routine much better as I keep reminding him that he's not required to sit down and practice each and every piece of song since he has ample time to do it the next day. And the result is almost immediate, because the following week, he received 3 stars and a "very good" comment from his teacher. He perked up and regained his confidence, and of course, is willing to practice more.

Just a few weeks ago, all of us were struggling to make a decision on whether we should continue his piano lessons, since obviously, he's not too interested, nor very talented in that. And back then I told him that I do not wish to see him easily give up on it just because he finds it difficult, and I believe if he practices more, he will master it and find it easier slowly. And since he's committed to go for his Prep Test in September, we will only bring up this topic and make a decision after he's done with the test, be it he passes or not, we will respect his choice about whether to continue his lesson or not, of course, provided he could justify for himself.

For now, I am hoping that the new routine will change his attitude towards piano practice and boost up his fighting spirit to conquer it, and hopefully, to continue with his lessons and enjoy the learning experience!

Ending this post with a cheeky video of Renzo practicing his piano and yes he's been pretty cheerful recently when he's asked to practice every night, so I am pinning much more hope than before that he would continue his learning journey happily and carry on with this only one real enrichment we sign him up for..