Trial Lesson  (There is a $60 fee for a 45-60 min session for the trial lesson)

This is not the first thing we do by any means, but I wanted to list it first since it is a very fun and rewarding experience that students quickly grow to look forward to! Joy and curiosity are the greatest sources of motivation for learning, and pride comes in to solidify their path if your child is meant for this.

I use lesson books that fit each student until he or she learns the basic concepts of piano playing and music reading. I tend to use Faber Piano Adventures for 6-7-year-old beginners, and Music for Little Mozarts along with mixed Japanese materials for younger beginners during the first 1-2 years. However, this really varies depending on each student's learning style, interests, and types of challenges.

Learning how to recreate and "read" rhythm on sheet music is a foundational skill required for success in music study, and it is best developed in early childhood. However, with proper training, these skills can also develop in older students. Accurate rhythm, with the proper energy assigned to each beat, brings life to the music, and being strong in this area is a tremendous asset to a musician.

The two basic elements in music are rhythm and pitch. Training students' ears for absolute and relative pitch, intervals, and chords from an early age gives children a strong advantage in their future music study. While it is best developed in early childhood, these skills can also be cultivated in older students with proper training.

This is the training of "reading" (decoding and playing) a short piece of sheet music on the spot. It requires a combination of many skills—rhythm reading, note reading, understanding key signatures, hand coordination, fingering planning, etc. It is most definitely a skill that requires routine training for years to develop properly.

Learning how to efficiently and swiftly move your fingers on the keys to produce even and colorful sound is essential. We develop these pianistic finger skills by practicing scales, arpeggios, and chords (both block and broken) in all 24 keys, among other exercises. Especially for success in piano study beyond the intermediate level, students will need focused training in these skills sooner or later, and it’s best to start early. By working on these exercises from an early age, students can also internalize the fundamentals of music theory subconsciously, which provides a strong advantage in their future music study.

Starting with note reading and rhythm reading, and progressing to understanding scales, intervals, and chords, as well as more advanced topics such as music form analysis and harmony analysis, music theory is an essential part of piano study at each level. At our studio, this area of study is incorporated into the sight-reading weekly drill. Students are assigned a few pages from a sight-reading book each week, and support will be provided during the lesson if needed. However, I prefer not to spend too much time on this during lessons so we can focus on more exciting aspects of piano study, like learning how to make the piano sing your favorite songs beautifully!

Therefore, please be mentally prepared to provide consistent support at home, helping your child take responsibility for this part of their music study each week by working through a few pages of note-reading or theory books. This means you will be the “bad cop,” enforcing the practice and helping them with the work if needed, until they build the habit of doing it on their own.

Most of us, and our children, experience "laziness streaks," and it often takes motivating factors like "recital performances" to help us push through and finish learning challenging pieces of music. (And piano students are almost always working on increasingly difficult pieces for each recital.) But the real joy of piano study and performance often starts here –– after practicing the piece enough to know it well, ideally memorized. Through exam preparation, we aim to elevate each piece we learn to a higher level. And through this process, we learn to strive for our best "perfection," both technically and expressively, at each phase of learning. You will also be preparing for other requirements (technical tests, rhythm tests, ear tests, sight-reading, etc.) for various exams at different levels.