A few evenings ago, another piano teacher and I combined our small studios for a Christmas piano recital. It was a special time.
Yes, I am teaching piano again!
I could write volumes about my musical past, but the short story is that I took a one-year sabbatical from teaching piano (May 2011 to May 2012). It was a wonderful break for me. Piano had been my life up until that point. I had suffered some disappointments, though, that had tempted me to give up music.
Disappointments like...
Graduate school: My virtuosic Asian peers intimidated me, and I started having memory slips in performance for the first time.
My first year as a professional musician: I worked morning, afternoon, and evening at 3 different music jobs. I ended up teaching 54 students plus accompanying several others. My life was exhausting. And to put it bluntly, I had no life!
My second year as a professional musician: I dropped one of my 3 music jobs to save my sanity and then struggled to survive financially.
Rejection letters: I applied to a couple of doctoral programs in piano and was rejected. I discovered that I had been playing with an inverted hand position for all of these years and that it might take quite a bit of time and effort to correct it.
So, I did something radical...perhaps foolish. I quit my music jobs and moved home with my parents! I enrolled in some computer courses, thinking that I would train to be a secretary or something. I worked at minumum wage jobs to pay the bills.
And then...well, most of my friends know the rest of the story. God brought Prince Charming into my life right when I needed a hero! My year of sabbatical from piano ended up being my year of falling in love, planning my wedding, and tying the knot.
I love how God works.
And then I found a part-time job teaching piano at a local music school. And I took it. And I am realizing that maybe teaching piano is my destined career after all.
I have a new philosophy of teaching, though. Never will I encourage my students to strive to be better than everyone else. No matter how talented you are, there will always be people who are better than you. My goals are simply to encourage my students to be their own personal best and to share the joy of music.
And that is why I am now a strong believer in recitals. Competitions are good for some, but recitals are good for everybody!
I felt the joy a few evenings ago. I was proud of my 3 little students. For 2 of them, it was their very, very first recital. Even I played a Christmas carol, "O Holy Night." It may not have been the most technically impressive solo, but there was something special in it--a piece of my heart.
