The ABCs of My Many Memorable Moments at CMC – Insights from Cheng-Feng Lin
The ABCs of My Many Memorable Moments at CMC By Cheng-Feng Lin Over the years teaching at CMC, I have had many memorable moments. These lessons are really special, where I get to know each student at a deep level, often for more than one decade. For that, I am grateful for the trust from the parents and the students. Here I have compiled an alphabetical list, from A to Z, for certain qualities that have been consistent and present in the lessons I have been giving throughout these years at CMC. Click each row to expand! A—Affection and Appreciation The lessons are filled with a lot of affection and appreciation. We also explore ways to play with affection and appreciation, as the musical pieces demand them to communicate these affects from their inner states and through their fingers. B—Being present The process of music making requires the students to be present in the body and the breath so that they are available to serve this art form. With the presence and attentiveness, breakthrough and transformation may then take place. C—Choice The students enjoy making decisions alone or with me during the lessons for issues like, fingering choices, interpretive choices, phrasing shape choices, for example. This leads to many positive benefits, such as empowerment, autonomy, curiosity, awareness, and more. I often tell them that they will not always have a teacher in the future, and they need to know how to process the music at hand independently. D—Dialogue I always love to hear what the students would respond in our conversation about music. However, it is even more interesting to listen to the shift when they speak their inner thoughts out loud: “it’s difficult” or “ I can’t” gradually turns into, “let me try again”, or “Ah, I almost have it”. E—Energy My students’ eyes often light up when they experience the magic of the cause and effect between the input of their physical effort with a particular energy/intention and the outcome when the piano ‘sings’ back to them in that particular energy mirroring theirs. They hear it! F—Focus The lesson is definitely a fertile ground to develop the capacity to focus: to be as aligned as possible in what they feel, think, see, and do, wiring many senses together in one unified state while playing the piano. They are invited to do so without the excessive tension and stress. G—Generosity I often encourage the students to be generous with their time and effort for their learning and practicing. Instead of seeing the learning and practicing as a chore or obligation, I would discuss and help them to see it as a generous gift—the gift of possibility and competency. H—Honesty Oh, the honesty of these young children! They are direct when expressing their thoughts upon hearing the music, or upon certain tasks that I propose. They would often show me their preferred way of learning something. Teenagers are far more discreet. It comes with a little sigh or a hesitant look. With some encouragement, they do tell, “I will have many tests next week, and I am not sure if I could get to all these scales..” I—Intuition Here I am referring to the musical intuition. Intuition literally means the tuition or the guidance from within. I put in high priority in developing and encouraging this internal musical guiding force of the students. I see this happening when the student (apparently not reading the music sheet on the stand) got ‘lost’ in the middle of the phrase, but managed to ‘invent’ a sensible alternative ending within the measure without even realizing they had done so. Or when the student instinctually builds up the energy of a phrase while playing it, without noticing the crescendo sign on the page. Another illustration would be improvisation. When the student enjoys improvising on the piano and delights in exploring new melodic patterns. J—Juggle Juggling with many tasks in life is the reality of the students I meet at CMC. Good time management on their part for home practicing is crucial. Considering the length of the lesson time (short), frequency of the lesson (only 1x/week), and the amount of materials (a ton), I am still learning the art of time management of giving a lesson. K—Kindness Oh I only wish if some of the students would not be so hard on themselves. The road of learning music never ends and the going does get tough often. Being kind and compassionate to one’s own learning process is one of the secrets to the life-long musical practice. L—Learning to listen Listening is a phenomenon that engages our whole being. It is about giving care, attentiveness, awareness and discernment while listening. Easy said than done, as we can be so busy with playing and not really listening. At the lesson, we often exercise this sense by isolating certain musical segment in order to listen in a particular way while playing. We would share our reflection after listening/playing. “How was the E in the end of the phrase? How did you shape it?”, for example. M—Musicality I would like to broaden the contemplation of musicality in reference to the students’ personality and their self expression. To me, each one of them is like a piece of living music. Here are some examples: the sparkle of their eyes when they hear that alluring harmony; the little nods to the groovy beats of the pop song they would like me to teach them; the melancholy student who tells me that Bb minor is her favourite key; a sudden obsession to make sure that very quiet sound at the end sounds ‘just right’. The musicality that lives through them is intrinsic, visceral, and spontaneous. N—Nourishment Once, a student said to me, while playing Beethoven’s Für Elise, “the music sheet is like a post card from Beethoven. I get to know his thoughts from the music.” Yes, my dear! Beethoven passed away, but his messages remains with us. And one way
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