Terren and Koda. Sistahs.

august 2015

after a number of frustrating months wondering whether terren's piano teacher knew how best to teach terren, mom finally decides to confront her teacher. in short, we get dumped. mom embarks upon hours and hours of research via phone, email, and websites for east bay piano teachers. moms sets up to meet seven different teachers, narrowing down to 2 and ending with amy (who is the state president of the music teacher's assocation of california). she hears terren play a song and a half and turns to mom and says, "she needs to go to the conservatory," as in the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. mom's jaw drops inside her head, in part because terren's teacher had advised the same thing when she dumped us, but dad and mom had looked into it and decided it was too much, too young - and too far. mom asks if amy can help give us names of teachers who teach at the conservatory, thinking that we can get into a private studio intead of doing the full conservatory route. she spends 15 minutes with mom finding a bunch of names and mom asks, "what do i say to these people? i'm not that crazy mom who thinks her kid is amazing at piano" and she says, "just tell them i referred you." dad completely shuns the advice of this teacher and tells mom to not pursue this path of driving into the city for piano lessons. mom bares her claws telling dad, "i am not having this discussion. we can always say no but i have to uncover every possibility that may fit terren." mom does research on the six and narrows it down to two. she emails them both, and based on amy's referral, both teachers are willing to audition terren. totally clueless about the music world and what this entails, mom spends the next couple weeks trying to prepare her. dad moves around his work, mom pawns off mm (thanks to rachel) and we head into the city on a thursday night and terren "auditions" with both teachers. 

we meet with john mccarthy, the previous director of the conservatory prep program for 16 years. after hearing terren play 2 songs, he asks her to play the prelude by bach, and mom nervously says, "that's not really prepared." he chuckles and says, "the audition is over. this is purely for my pleasure." he asks us "why the change?" and mom tells him the story of terren's 3 piano teachers. at the end, he looks directly at mom and says, "i think I'M her teacher." mom doesn't know what to say, perhaps speechless for the first time in her life. dad is totally turned off by the comment. we were both shocked in different ways, thinking, "who says that kind of thing?!?" five mintues later, he looks straight at mom and says, "let me reiterate, i would like to teach terren." hard to say no to that. after some pizza, we go to meet another teacher at the conservatory itself, which is exactly as you'd imagine - stunningly beautiful inside with amazing musicians playing classical guitar, trumpet, etc. the other teacher, in addition to hearing her play a couple songs, gives her a litany of tests - major and minor scales, testing her ear, sightreading, theory, etc. terren nails everything except the test for perfect pitch. although this teacher does not take young kids, he tells us at the end of this process, "i'd like to work with terren." dad and mom walk out of the conservatory in disbelief, feeling like our life just got turned upside down. not understanding anything about the music world, mom quickly pings anyone she knows who might be able to advise her about these teachers - kanae, yo, and lindsey (molly's mom). mom quickly learns how amazing both of these teachers are and what a crazy opportuniy this is for terren. time to say, "yes!" we feel so grateful…and we're so glad that mom trusted her gut…and bared her claws.