George has been studying piano since 1999, when he was 8 years old. Living in Georgia (Eurasia) at the time, he had teachers in-school, outside of school, group theory lessons and private practical lessons. Then in Canada, he went through many more teachers on his way to get a higher education in music, and has been teaching music since he was 18 years old. At this time he was preparing for level 10 RCM (Royal Conservatory of Music) Examinations which included Harmony, History, Practical, and Technical exams.
As George went through all these teachers, he has been noticing effective methods of teaching and some that were making him just want to quit.
There are teachers that will pick a book or two for you, and go through every piece one by one while supplementing with theory. This may work for some students, but for most- young or old, this is just too boring and encourages quitting. Then there are teachers that try to boost your creativity and love for the instrument by not only teaching the skills as you go, but by teaching some theory and explaining how or why it works. On top of this, they offer pieces that they think you might know, like, or have requested to play. This way, the student not only learns, but enjoys what they are learning and develops a sense of accomplishment.
It is this sense of accomplishment that has not been felt very often when George was studying piano. At one point he quit studying piano for a year and started with a new guitar teacher. While his guitar career was short-lived, the guitar teacher was one of the more memorable teachers George has had. By learning classic, well known pieces that were quickly becoming within his playing ability, George felt encouraged and generally enjoyed playing the guitar more than the piano until he realized the similarities between the two instruments.
Utilizing these lessons from the many teachers he had, George did his best to provide enjoyable lessons that do not feel like hard work as much as just learning a fun new piece to play. By adding interesting facts, guiding his students to reach their goals in the quickest way possible, and doing his best to generate a love and a sense of achievement within each student, he has successfully encouraged many children to reach the levels they wanted and felt unreachable when taking lessons with other teachers.
Seeing the difference in his students’ perspectives, and comparing the differences in his and their previous teachers approaches, encouraged George to open up his own in-home music school. Every teacher hired for this school goes through a more thorough interview than any George has ever been through himself. George asks his candidates specific questions such as how has their experience been with different types of students, asking for anecdotal evidence of easy and difficult students, their preferred methods of teaching, preferred genres of teaching, their qualifications, and of course most of all he is looking to see their drive and motivation.
Since not every student will benefit from the same teaching style, George makes sure to keep a database with his teachers answers and anytime there is a student that wants a lesson for a certain instrument, he is quickly able to deduce the best teachers for the student.
Should he not have an appropriate match, he is never afraid to provide honest answers, and enjoys following up on the progress of every single student through follow up calls to make sure everything is going well.
Now in 2020, he is in the process of incorporating new teaching tools into all of the school teacher’s arsenals in order to make in-home and online lessons more beneficial, and to encourage practice by creating short tasks for each student to complete, record, and send via applications created for the very purpose of better learning.
Questions? Call or schedule a call and George will answer any questions you may have as well as give you a chance to try out 1 lesson for free!