Piano Lessons with Miss Hanan

Me along with my wonderful boyfriend, Bennett!

MUSIC BIO

Where to start?  Music has always been a huge part of my life, beginning with group piano lessons at age 4 at my local Yamaha Music School and delving into solo performance, ensembles, accompaniment, improvisation, and composition.  Since before I can remember, every Saturday was piano day, and I looked forward to seeing all of my piano friends in my group class where we would sing solfege, clap, and and perform ensemble pieces together, developing our ears and sense of rhythm far more than we realized, and I am incredibly grateful for these priceless skills.  I took group piano lessons from age 4-12, studying with ChiLin Huang up until I passed the Yamaha Grade 6 examination (with all A's, the first student ever at our school!  It was a proud moment for 12-year-old me ☺).  Though I stopped taking group lessons due to my high school extracurriculars and other commitments, I continued to perform ensembles with my "piano group" at our music school recitals, and I consider these social events and fun performances to be one of the main reasons why I never had a desire to quit piano. 

My artistic and solo performance abilities began to develop when I started private piano lessons at age 7 with Dr. Ron Anderson, and I remained his piano student until I left for college.  I  lucked out that I had a great teacher from the start and have many fond memories of our lessons and our inside jokes.  To this day, I still quote him when I hear a student complaining about the difficulty of a song and say "Don't worry, hard music is just easy music in disguise!"  With Dr. Anderson, I participated in the MTAC Certificate of Merit annual evaluations and passed my Advanced Level evaluation at age 15, advancing to the the State Panel finals.

Building on the music foundation from my group classes, I also dabbled a bit in composition, studying with ChiLin Huang, Carlton Liu, and Wai Leong, and composed a handful of pieces in my youth.  One of my pieces, titled "Fur Imelda" was chosen to be performed at the regional Yamaha Junior Original Concert when I was 11, and in both middle and high school I competed and placed at both the regional and state levels in the annual California PTA Reflections program.

At UC San Diego, I originally intended to double major in Music and Biochemistry, marrying both my love for science and art, but ultimately decided to do a double major with Biochemistry and Psychology, with a minor in music, emphasis on Composition.  My main reason was that a music degree at UCSD required so many units (second only to an Engineering degree), and I figured I'd never become a piano teacher, haha!  If only I knew...  

TEACHING BIO AND GOALS

Once I graduated college in 2005, I worked both as an after school music instructor for Musical Minds, and a laboratory technician in an Alzheimer research lab, but quickly realized that the lab environment was not for me, and so I switched to teaching group classes full time and was promoted to the San Diego area coordinator for Musical Minds, where I both ran the program and taught at various elementary schools throughout San Diego county.  That program opened the door to a piano teacher position at the Kroc Center, where I grew the music program from 40 to 100+ students in both group and private lessons, and with that success I started working towards building my own personal studio.

Fast forward to present day!  I have been teaching for 9 years now, and have taught hundreds of students throughout San Diego both in group and private lessons, ranging from age 4 to 64.  I am a member of MTAC San Diego branch and the teacher work coordinator for MTAC, and many of my students take part in the annual Certificate of Merit evaluations, just like I did when I was young!  Though I am classically trained, I teach all styles along with music theory, and I hope to instill the same joy and love of music in my students that my teachers did for me.  

My goal is to build a well-balanced musician who sees the beauty in all types of music.  

FUN FACTS ABOUT ME

♪ My favorite color is blue (like my teaching crate and car!)

♪ My favorite composers are Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, and Debussy ♥

♪ I like to make piano arrangements of TV Show themes from my childhood for fun

♪ I still try my best to make time and practice new material every day for at least 45 minutes (it was so much easier before I had a busy teaching schedule!).  

♪ The iPad I use to supplement learning was one of the prizes I won on the game show "Let's Make a Deal" back in 2010.  

♪ I like to stay active.  Besides playing the piano, I like to run (I've done 3 marathons and 14 half marathons), rock climb, and do pilates and aerial silks.  I also like to ice skate, but I am horrible because I am scared of falling!