Piano Level 10 — Then What? A Dialogue on "Sustainable Music"

In the Age of AI: Cultural Studies + Music = Winning Combination

Lecture

Chengdu Xinzhihui Music Museum

Level 10 passed. Certificate in hand. Piano lid closed. Never opened again. I have seen far too many children like this. And more and more families are now doubling down on academic subjects and deciding to quit piano. When AI is creatively destroying the world's existing order, what will truly be scarce in the future is creativity, judgment, and the ability to integrate knowledge — and all of these abilities rest on a single underlying structure: aesthetic sensibility. Have parents noticed? Piano Level 10. Certificate in hand. Piano lid closed. Never opened again. The problem is not the child. The problem is the direction.

For this reason, we specially invited the well-known music educator Professor Yang Yang to condense her core observations and thinking into a deep "diagnostic session" for children, to help them find the musical path that suits them.

——

GRACE

——

MUSIC

——

CLASSIC

Speaker: Yang Yang

Associate Professor, Piano Department, Sichuan Conservatory of Music; Doctor of Piano Performance from Germany; concert pianist and chamber musician; Sichuan Province overseas high-level returnee talent. She has won major prizes at multiple international solo and chamber music competitions, and has performed across the United States, Germany, France, Greece, the Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and major Chinese cities including Hong Kong, maintaining an active international concert career.

Dr. Yang has dedicated more than twenty years to piano pedagogy and talent cultivation. Over a hundred students have won prizes in major domestic and international music competitions, and have gone on to study at prestigious conservatories in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, Belgium, France, Italy, and South Korea — the majority on scholarship. In January 2026 she was appointed as a member of the Advisory Committee of the Seoul Soloists Cello Ensemble (SSCE), South Korea's leading classical music representative body, with responsibility for international music exchange and cooperation, in recognition of her decade of contributions to Sino-Korean musical exchange.

In 2009 she founded "Yang Yang Piano Studio," building a systematic piano teaching framework from beginner to professional level, and to date has trained nearly 300 non-music-major students to a professional standard. She has long been devoted to piano teacher training in Southwest and Northwest China, with lecture tours covering Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Chongqing, Shaanxi, and Xinjiang. She also organizes students to give public-service concerts in Chengdu and surrounding areas, taking music into communities to cultivate young people's public spirit of serving society through art.

In 2018 she founded "Tongyue International Music Training Institute," integrating top overseas faculty and internationally renowned conservatory platforms, committed to building a professional and international development pathway for Chinese music lovers. She continuously runs online and in-person international masterclasses, academic lectures, overseas music study tours, and overseas study consulting programmes.

To date she has hosted nearly one hundred cross-border music exchange events and concerts of varying scale across seven consecutive years. In 2020 she founded the Tone & Galaxie International Piano Competition and the Tone Galaxie International Music Festival, providing a major platform for music lovers and professional musicians worldwide to showcase talent, exchange ideas, and collaborate.

Professor Yang's guiding educational philosophy is: "Find your own voice in music, and speak to the world."

Professor Yang wants to share with you

Lecture

Chengdu Xinzhihui Music Museum

01 Those Children Who "Stop at Level 10" — What Went Wrong?

I have taught piano for 30 years and have seen far too many children like this:

Piano Level 10. Certificate in hand. Piano lid closed. Never opened again.

I have also seen far too many families — children who clearly have a foundation and a love of music, yet are forced to quit when faced with the either/or of "university entrance exams vs. piano practice."

What went wrong? It's not that the children don't love music. The direction was wrong.

If learning piano is like building a house, many children only lay the foundation and receive the "foundation inspection certificate" (that is, the Level 10 certificate) — and then construction stops. The real building hasn't even started, and it's already over.

In fact, it is after building a certain foundation that music education truly enters its "dividend period."

02 Where Is the True Value of Piano Study — Hidden in Which Two Layers?

I divide piano learning into three levels:

Level 1: Skills — playing completely and correctly. This is the foundation stage; the vast majority of students who take grading exams stop here.

Level 2: Structure — understanding musical phrases, perceiving layers of sound, awakening aesthetic awareness. Only students with a certain foundation can truly enter this level.

Level 3: Character — aesthetic sensibility formed, expressive confidence developed, music becoming a pillar of one's inner life. Most children get stuck at Level 1 and conclude with a Level 10 certificate.

True long-term benefit comes from being stably grounded in Level 2 and continually reaching toward Level 3.

03 Three Key Insights for "Dual-Track" Families

For children who have a foundation and want to continue, I have three things to say:

First: music and academics are not opposing forces.

When the approach is right, piano can actually become an accelerator for academic study. Musical training develops focus, structural thinking, self-discipline, and the ability to plan with delayed gratification — which of these qualities is not on the checklist for high achievers?

Second: grading exams are not the destination — they shouldn't even be the direction.

In my teaching system, grading exams are just stage assessments. The three things we truly work on are:

1️⃣ Systematic technical training (ensuring professional standards are maintained)

2️⃣ Cultivation of aesthetic structure (ensuring long-term value)

3️⃣ Time management planning (so that academics and piano need not conflict)

Third: for a piano teacher, the greatest sense of achievement is not how many levels a student has passed, but that the student, after leaving you, still chooses to sit down and play of their own accord.

04 Don't Ask First Whether There's Enough Time — Ask First Whether the Direction Is Right

So when parents ask me, "Middle school is so demanding — should we quit piano?" my answer is always: don't ask first whether there's enough time. Ask first whether the direction is right.

When the direction is right, even if practice time decreases, the child will still be making progress. When the direction is wrong, more practice only depletes.

In the Age of AI: Cultural Studies + Music = Winning Combination

Lecture

Chengdu Xinzhihui Music Museum

Chengdu Xinzhihui Music Museum — more than a home for musical artifacts, it is a place for the exchange of educational ideas. We want to offer families who "have a piano foundation and don't want to give up" a sustainable path forward — and offer piano teachers who teach such students a fresh pedagogical perspective.

In the lecture, Professor Yang will draw on her teaching experience and use real-world cases to analyze:

- How to tell which level of piano learning your child is currently at?

- After building a foundation, how should the learning direction be adjusted?

- Can academics and piano really coexist? — Time management strategies for "dual-track" families

- How can piano teachers help students move from "exam machines" to "lifelong music lovers"?

How to Register

Registration QR code

Topic: Rebuilding Child Education in the AI Era and Cultivating Aesthetic Capacity

Date: March 14, 2026, 14:00

Venue: Chengdu Xinzhihui Music Museum · Steinway Concert Hall

Special arrangement: 1-on-1 on-site guidance (20 spots, pre-registration required)

Performance Information

MUSIC

Performance Date: March 14, 2026, 14:00

Venue: Chengdu Xinzhihui Music Museum · Steinway Concert Hall

Organizer: Chengdu Xinzhihui Music Museum / Sichuan Yen Technology Development Co., Ltd.

Follow Us

TikTok | Chengdu Xinzhihui Music Museum

Xiaohongshu | Chengdu Xinzhihui Music Museum

WeChat Official Account — follow us for more updates~

Join the Xinzhihui Fan Family — community members receive regular public welfare activity updates