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Compare two worlds: commercial and private. I am not talking about which one has more chances of getting a real non-MTAC member. I am talking about which one has more chances of getting a “FAKE MTAC member”

I'm not sure where you're going with this.

You're saying if a private teacher claims MTAC, I should trust them, but if a commercial school teacher claims the same thing, I should assume it is fake?

So while MTAC may be valuable, it doesn't seem to be a force in the marketplace. I would bet few prospective students have any idea it exists. I certainly didn't until reading this forum, and that was after finding a couple of piano teachers for my kids and myself.

MTAC = Music Teachers' Association of CALIFORNIA



In California, MTAC has cornered the marketplace. The MTNA scene in California (called CAPMT) is rather small in comparison.

Ezpiano talked about an organization that has a number of teachers, some of them registered with MTAC, and the registered member could sign for the non-member. And then that a private teacher cannot do that, because that teacher is alone. It was a specific scenario.

But perhaps Orange County, California is different: it certainly sounds like an interesting place to be running a piano studio!

I think the post was very clear, but if you only read the part you quoted, you won't understand what is being said. A post must be read in its entiretly.

Sounds like an advantage to the school. You could have a very good independent teacher, but if she isn't certified, or has some other certification, you're out of luck. With the school you could stay with the teacher you like and still take the test.

When commercial institutions take advantage of a testing system based on teacher-volunteers, everyone loses, except of course for the music school owners.

Thank you Tim. I took one day to think about what you wrote. All I can conclude is that we are very different people. Not only we are different in geography, we are different in our goal of taking piano lesson and our moral value are different too.

Please notice that I do not say my moral value is better than you, all I say here is that our moral value is very different.

Thank you for open my eyes to realize that commercial music school actually catering their business for people like you.

Please take care.

I could be misreading this - hope so - but it would appear you've chosen a polite way to be as deliberately offensive as possible.

That would indeed indicate we have very different moral values - if in fact I've read you correctly - hope not.

[quote=keystring] When commercial institutions take advantage of a testing system based on teacher-volunteers, everyone loses, except of course for the music school owners.

I live in Irvine as seraval of my siblings. My son spent 2 years at a "commercial" piano studio as many of his cousins. One of his cousin passed MTAC Level 10 studying from one of the commercial piano studios. Although my son now studies piano with a private teacher, many of his cousins still go to the commerical piano studios.

My son quit the multi-teacher studio because his teacher at the time, whom he has grown fond of, quit the school due to a business dispute. We decided to hire her as his private teacher following her resignation. Although I'm not a fan of commercial studios and their directors, I wanted to offer a different point of view seen from parents' perspectives.

From my experiences with several bigger commercial piano studios, most of their teachers are credentialed, highly credentialed in fact. I suspect that the studio directors want to hire highly credentialed teachers to attract clients. My son's first teacher has a doctorate degree in piano performance. His two other teachers at the same "commercial" studios have master degrees. My nephews and nieces' teachers at the commercial studios have masters or higher as well.

BTW, before my son started piano studies, I talked to my bros and sis and friends, and heard quite a few "horror" stories re: private piano teachers, hence we decided to sign him up for the multi-teacher studio.

Commercial studios offer many conveniences to the parents (the folks signing the checks) that most private teachers do not:

1. After my son's first teacher left the studio for personal reasons, his 2nd teacher and he never hit it off. After our reflection to the studio's director, he was "assigned" another teacher immediately. No 30-day notice, no explanation given to the teacher (it's not our job).

2. When his teacher needs to take a few weeks off, we did not have to search long and hard for a sub. One was assigned, so he did not miss any lessons. When he studied privately and his teacher took two months off for maternity leave, he was without a teacher for those two months.

3. Every quarter my son was evaluated by the director for progress. Based on my son's progress, the director gave us a plan, we gave him feedback. Together, we determined if the plan suited my son. Tremendous help for parents who are muscially (piano) challenged like us. I doubt if many private teachers offer such regurlar evaluations.

4. His progress was concretely measured. For the parents who know piano or music, perhaps getting past certain exam levels might not be a good indication of progress, but for those who are musically challenged like us, the only way for us to differentiate between good progress or lack of is how well our sons and daugheters are doing at exams and/or competitions. Commercial studios tend to provide concrete, measureable goals.

As mentioned, my son studies with a private teacher now, and I'm not a big fan of the music schools, but they do serve their purposes for some parents, ones like us 4+ years ago.

So, to Kevin Kao, although I live in Irvine, I had not heard of Cameron Tong and his studio until I read this post, for I suspect it's not one of the big, well-known ones in Irvine. Frankly, your review of Cameron Tong does not offer much to the parents. Cameron might be a crook, but your review smacked me as a gripe from a disgruntled former employee. Try to write for the parents, i.e. how the director being a crook affects students' progress, then perhaps it would be more useful.

I don't think there are anything wrong with large commercial studios if it's run with students' interests at heart. There might be others, but I know of at least one such studios (not the one my son attended) in Irvine. Perhaps, EZ, Kevin, AZN can team up and create a multi-teacher studio that provides the conveniences cited above, yet is ethical, and keeps student's interest above all else.

Just a thought.

Judging by aznpiano's earlier posts you are gullible and easily deceived, not interested in quality, etc.