Teaching Philosophy

Primarily, a piano teacher teaches piano.  Expertise in piano skills, current trends, and repertoires are fundamentally required.  Over the years, the instrument-piano itself- is improving because of the new developments of engineering and materials.  Also, piano teachers are developing better techniques constantly.  In addition, new music repertories are written.  Therefore, a piano teacher needs to keep it up with new trends.

We need to know how to teach effectively.  Over the ten years of my teaching experience, this skill improved significantly.  However, I realized every student is different so I wanted learn more about the teaching methods by enrolling in the post graduate course in the college of education.  Memorization is a big part of piano performance, and there are more effective ways of memorization.  I studied neuroscience to understand better ways of long term potentiation and motor memory.  As I explain the neuroscientific knowledge of memorization and anxiety, it helps students.

In Chinese, the literal meaning of teacher is “a person who is born earlier”.  It modestly infers that the teacher is a person who was born earlier and accumulated more experiences and is eager to share the experiences with other people.  As a piano teacher, I have experienced more of piano than my students.  I have practiced and enjoyed piano for forty years and taught it for so many years. Although it is not the same, I have had similar experiences as to what my students are confronting.  That is why I can take a leader’s role to my students.  In addition, that is why I do not hesitate to take a role of counselor or mentor to my students when they need me.

My goal is not just to teach students how to play, but to help them grow in music, as well as in character. As a teacher, I take a personal interest in every student as an individual and I aim to touch their hearts through music. Helping students find joy in piano is my primary objective. Often practicing can be repetitive and tedious, especially technical exercises. However, those exercises and practices are necessary for progress. By teaching them music theories and histories, they have a better understanding and can adopt the music and express themselves. When guided by proper technique, unnecessary repetitions are minimized to allow them to find joy in music. Most of all, by revealing the wonderful world of music to them and showing them how exciting it is to play and enjoy the music, students seem to experience the music from their heart.

~Christine Lee, NCTM