Ms. Ruth has been an incredibly patient, hard-working piano teacher for my 8 year old daughter. She's the calm, kind, firm, and extremely patient teacher that my daughter has needed.
Now, Ms. Ruth can be tough. She holds my daughter to high standards (posture, finger position, rhythm, dynamics, etc etc), and keeps patiently repeating the same skills and songs until my daughter learns them.
I've noticed Ms. Ruth is also excellent at "diagnosing" problems and issues with my daughter's piano skills. E.g., she noticed that my daughter's fingers were not strong enough to play certain dynamics, so she gave her exercises to strengthen her fingers. She noticed my daughter was slouching due to being too short to sit at our bench and placed a foot stool there to help. She figured out my daughter was confused on dotted half note counting and addressed that accordingly.
As a result, my daughter has learned she has to work harder to meet Ms. Ruth's high standards, but she's not afraid or nervous because Ms. Ruth is so kind and supports her through diligent teaching, instruction, and patient repetition until she gets it.
Consequently, my daughter just told me and my husband the other day "I like piano more now! Probably cause I'm getting better and better at it...".
We have not had to nag or fight her to practice anymore (which we had to do for over 2 years previously). Part of the reason is probably due to maturity, but also definitely to Ms. Ruth.
We don't expect our daughter to pursue concert piano or anything, but our goal has always been to encourage her to enjoy music and creating music, a life-long joy.
This enjoyment my daughter is experiencing now in playing piano and the decreased stress on me and my husband to push her to practice daily is priceless!!!
I highly recommend Ms. Ruth as a piano teacher. read more