Room for Improvement

A couple of nights ago, I took Sienna to watch another 5-year-old taking her piano lesson with Yiga. I thought it was a good idea to see how other kids of her age play. It turned out to be that way. Afterwards, I asked Sienna, "How do you think of her playing? How about her fingering?" Sienna said she was good with her fingers. The girl has perfect fingering. It shows Yiga is a great teacher and the girl is a diligent little person. However, she played some pieces that I could not recognize even though I was supposed to because the tempo was not right. Yiga said each kid follows a different path to master the skill. She is fully aware of the differences and helps accordingly. In our case, Yiga stresses Sienna has the best sense of tempo and most perfect pitch. She kind of "blamed me" for not being strict enough for the practice even she understands my intention. I have tried to get her into music and keep her in there. That seems to be accomplished quite well. Even tonight, we turned the piano practice into a lyric writing session. Sienna started to sing a song using the music she is practicing this week. "The sun came up. The moon went to sleep..." She asked me to write it down. And she wrote them in English... Watching the girl play reminded there are specific tasks we need to tackle through the hard work.