*my first day at work!!

Today was the official day I start teaching. I got a call from Elaine asking me to drop by Wednesday for two students, one piano and one violin. The 6-year-old piano student was a bit slow in her note-reading. I guess I’ll have to think of some method to refresh her theory. She counts every note afresh, and not at a fixed beat per bar. For example, she counts the crotchet after a dotted minim as beat 1, instead of beat 4.^^

When she plays, she takes a very long time to read the notes. And her counting is everywhere! Oh dear. One second beats 1 and 2 were as fast as ever, the next minute it turns adagio.

The next student was a boy who was fanatic about the violin. According to his grandmother, he wanted so much to learn the instrument. Hehe…reminded me of myself. Since he had no piano background, he had to learn theory so that he could read notes later on. The first lesson went pass as I tried to teach him as much terms as possible. Before this, he learned Chinese music in school and read notes in 123. So now I have to teach him the ABC and note values. He grew bored eventually, so I taught him the most basic posture and the four main strings. He grew so excited he actually wanted to learn how to play all the notes in his very first lesson!!

Unfortunately we ran out of time, so I asked him to practice just those 4 strings and concentrate on trying to produce a better tone instead.^^

I had the privilege of sitting in for another observation. This teacher was quite experienced, and I learned a few useful tips from her.

So there u have the highlights of my day yesterday. The coming afternoon is another day with two more students. In addition, I have to sit in for a toddler’s class. I hope everything goes well. I’ve never really handled toddlers before!