Roksana is an amazing teacher and I couldn't recommend more highly.
I started lessons with Roksana about 5 years ago after a gap of 39 years(!) and it looks hours and hour of scales everyweek for at least a year (or longer) to get into the kind of shape needed to start seriously progressing from where I’d left off. I wanted to take Grade 6 but for that I needed to have Grade 5 theory - I’d taken that as a teenager but had lost the certificate. Being as that pre-dated computer records, I couldn’t get a new copy. So I started studying theory again and finally took the exam online.
We also (having inherited an instrument best described as “end of life”) needed a new piano. That made a huge difference once negotiated. I started, with Roksana’s encouragement and gentle (or not so gentle) little nudges to tackle more complex musical challenges, like Latin American polyrhythms or the “simpler” Bach repertoire. All of this was aimed re-building the strength and coordination in my hands after decades of atrophying. I’d always played guitar but piano demands a whole different set of muscle memory and fine control. This all led to actual performances in front of people (despite appalling stage fright) successfully passing the Grade 6 practical after a 44 year break. Onwards to grade 7!
