My Background & Reflections

Since you are one of my first valued guests visiting my blog, let me share with you about my story and why I've chosen to teach piano as my career path.

I'm truly blessed that my old grandma insisted my parents to buy a small upright piano in our small childhood Mei Foo apartment in Hong Kong. During the early 90s having a piano in a small HK home was a luxury; my parents both had zero music talent and couldn't care less about music. Grandma was a music teacher in Indonesia when she was young and she loved singing and playing random simple old-school Chinese songs on piano while pressing self-invented chords, all day long. Music is the only thing that makes her truly happy, she could be unbelievably spiteful to her close family at all other times. It was her idea for me and my brother (Felix & me in photo) to undertake piano lessons, with an Indonesian-Chinese neighbourhood teacher. That's how we got our first foundational education in piano. Being educated in Hong Kong, I was conditioned to be an obedient & passive learner, knowledge on every subject was learned in a cramming way. I never questioned why I should be taking lessons or practising, it was only for passing the exams.. As I advanced towards the higher level of Grade 7 ABRSM, without real motivation inevitably I succumbed to the stress while preparing for Grade 8 and begged my parents to stop lessons.

I was granted my wish, after all piano fees was a significant expense for my parents who had to work hard to sustain our livelihoods. My brother Felix arrived at Melbourne to study when he was 14 while my parents stayed in HK for work. As a lonely & rebellious teenage boy he went astray for a few years and was kicked out of East Doncaster Secondary College due to his notoriety. Fortunately he still had talent and ability in playing piano, and was granted a place in Blackburn High School and studied VCE Music there. His interest in music redirected his path and allowed him to study at Monash University majoring in Piano Performance.

I arrived in Melbourne in 2005 and also undertook VCE Music, it was a time free of distraction from video-game addiction I used to indulge myself while hidden in my room. Life in Australia was rather dull, piano and music offered a sense of freedom and escape. I finally enjoyed practising and playing on my own just for the sake of pleasure & expressing my emotion. Seeing my brother practising during his Bachelors' also inspired me to keep honing my own piano skills. However, my mom wasn't so supportive of my intention to study music for Uni, she thought it was a bad idea for both my brother and I to go down the same artistic & uncertain path. I ended up studying Business for my Bachelors being told it was more 'realistic' so that I could get a job somewhere in a bank. As usual I crammed through the lecture notes of various subjects before exams to pass the courses and graduated from my Bachelors of Business in 2011. But somewhere deep in my heart I wasn't satisfied, and compelled me to go for the Masters of Music audition in Monash, following my brother's footsteps. I didn't want my musical talent to wither and die, miraculously I passed the audition and went on to achieve Distinctions in all my Music studies in 2012. That's how I started taking piano students in my early 20s. I learned how to teach by trial and error, without a formal education in pedagogy. I struggled for a few years with mediocre results, in my early 20s making money was the main concern over students' quality of learning. It finally dawned on me that if I want to move up in this field of piano teaching, I could not pass on the old ways that I was taught when I was a child. Exams are only a by-product of progress they shouldn't be an end. I must make my students interested in music themselves, to spark their desire and self-motivation to learn piano. Looking at some students' disinterested and wandering eyes in front of music sheets reminded me of my old-self. In this digital age full of distractions, it's harder than ever for young students to concentrate on anything for more than half-hour except video games.

Focused Attention matters, arguably it is the most important element in the learning process. The brain develops complex & solid neural pathways when an action is repeated over and over, forming automatic muscle memory which is the core of piano technique. The most important thing that can sustain years of long-term practice and hard-wiring is a genuine desire and love of music. But what sparks desire in the first place? It is emotion, the higher meaning above language that music expresses. In every heart of students lies a key, that key could be related to his subject of natural interest or obsession. It might even be unrelated to music but could unlock the untapped potential to reignite the fire of curiosity so crucial in learning.

Now I have clarity that it is my life's task, my calling to bring something valuable back to the world. I am far too privileged to have received education in the higher subjects. Despite living in this time of great change, music will always stand the test of time, it is a dimension of timeless immortality where great composers still live in our hearts & minds forever. It is my duty to muster all my finite time & talents, all my strengths & courage, all my emotions; sorrow or joyful, to help others shine. This is a decisional love, a soul's desire to inspire the younger generation. In the end we should all walk our own individual path. What matters most in life is doing what we believe is the next right thing to do, gracefully doing what our hearts yearn to do next, one step at a time. Then we'll always be doing something meaningful and intended by fate. It doesn't matter what others think of us.