My music school, Music Makers, wants to raise the fees for my er-hu lessons from RM40 to a whopping RM70. That's like almost double! I am understandably miffed that my musical genius does not seem to impress the school enough for them to want to nurture my talent for free. I mean, everyone jumps in to sponsor geniuses don't they? Molly, the administrator, tried to reason with me by saying that my RM40 lesson was supposed to be for just half and hour. But my instructor, Mr. Lau, has been going over and above the call of duty ever since I started lessons by spending an hour or more with me every time. And I am apparently now a proud level 3 student, not a beginner anymore. Surely, I can understand that the situation calls for a significant increase in rates? While my brain is telling me this seems a reasonable statement, I can't help but sulk right now. Don't they recognize the fact that I may be performing in the Royal Albert Hall in the very near future?!!
Ultraman, a staunch advocate of Google, thinks that I can stop the lessons if I wanted to. He believes that you can learn anything just by YouTube nowadays. Said the same thing to me when I insisted on signing up for bread-making classes at Taylor's too. But can someone really learn and be good at something by just watching and re-watching videos on YouTube? While the Internet has definitely come a long way in dispersing knowledge and information, it just cannot interact with you in the way a human can. Can it stop me when I am not really doing the technique right ? Can it tell me whether I played a piece well? Can it tell me that I have played the note a little too short or a little too long? Can it tell me to why I should play slower or softer, or how to interpret certain parts of the music? Can it share with me it's experience in performing and how that felt like? This very fundamental process of communcation and sharing is still sorely lacking with an electronic teacher. Ánd the relationship works both ways too - would the Internet know how to appreciate a good student? Though of course, one obvious advantage with the Internet is that you can keep reviewing the information and replaying the videos hundreds, thousands of times - that will test the patience of a saint!
I guess I am still old-style. I still believe in a good human teacher. So, I guess I have to re-look at my budget again to see how to deal with the raised prices for my lessons. While Mr. Lau has won this round, it does make you wonder how soon we may be totally dependent on the Internet for everything... Food for thought?
By the way, my sister shared a Youtube video of the pianist Lang Lang and his dad doing a duet on the er-hu. My sister says his dad was a police officer. Bet you the dad did not learn to play this way by using the Internet! Lang Lang and his father at Carnegie Hall
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