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BA in Music-concentrated in Piano Pedagogy, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.
I love working with students and helping them getting comfortable around music. I started playing piano since I was 6 years old and experienced different teachers, teaching methods, and musicians. I studied Music Education for the first two years at University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, then decided to focus in Piano Pedagogy starting my junior year. Not only I have a music degree, I also have a experiences with teaching young children from working as a teacher in early childcare and Child Development Laboratory at University of Illinois. As much as I love sharing my musical knowledge with students, I love learning from my students too.
I have been doing private piano lessons as my side job for a few years and discovered a lot of young talents. I also have experience teaching in early childhood education as well as teen-groups in after school learning centers. My teaching experience dates back to my high school days, as I began teaching music classes as a summer class at a local church. I also had volunteering experience as an assistant teacher for Sunday School. At University of Illinois, I had an opportunity to assist teachers at Child Development Laboratory.
For beginning young students, I typically start with Music Tree or Piano Adventure. Once the student has progressed, I will begin to introduce solo repertoire. For adult students, after seeing their level of playing, I would find the style of music that they are interested in. If students are interested in learning specific music pieces, we can focus on that until feeling comfortable and confident then move on to similar style so we can keep that interest going then move on to more advanced pieces.
As I experienced different teachers, I learned that I do my best when I enjoy my lesson. To make this happen, it's the teacher's job to make the lesson more fun and comfortable for students. Since I was not always the best student for my teachers (I know, I know... I used to hate doing practices on pieces I didn't like!), I know how students think and am more than willing to understand their perspective. I always try to look at my student's point of view and my lesson will be student centered rather than me forcing them to achieve something.