Yuzhang Li

As a professional concert pianist and a PhD in performance-practice research, I have abundant experience in how to strategically bring out the maximum of our musical potential. My lessons are designed to encourage students to find their own musical voice in a welcoming, non-judgemental, and efficient way.

I focus on structruring the lesson in the following stages: (in a scenario where a student learns a new piece)
1. Musician and music: encourage student to form a fresh impression of the piece and build up a new relationship with it, including sight-reading, discussion of individual's feelings / intuitions of the piece, and potential imagination / envisioning of how the piece is going to unfold;

2. Trial and further understanding: help student 'try on' the piece and discover accordingly their musical needs and potential areas for improvement / stablization / craftsmanship;

3. Problem-solving: work together to optimize solutions, including short-term and long-term ones that could be strategically planned out through time;

4. Design a bespoke, detailed practice plan to the individual's time management and expectations;

5. Review and Feedback in the next lesson, discuss and enquire with student about their personal experience and their self-assessment of the piece;

6. Return to step 3 and 4, revise or stablise the practice plan for the student, carry on through step 5, and form a cycle;

7. Intersect with necessary introduction / analysis of the background knowledge of both the piece and the composer / music theory to understand the structure of compositional layout;

8. Encourage and guide student to present themselves: as the student is developing their skills, it is possible to encourage them to present themselves in either casual or formal occasions, forming a performer-audience relationship.