Radayeva Music Studio

I love Radayeva Music Studio! My daughter takes violin lessons with Miss Yulia Dyak. When I first contacted the studio, Rema the director/​owner set up a time to meet with me in person. She asked me what my daughter was like, and what we hoped to gain in her weekly lessons, then she matched my daughter with a teacher she felt would be a good fit. Our match with Miss Yulia has been great! When you attend the recitals, you can see how talented many of the students are and how dedicated the teachers are to each of their students. I highly recommend Radayeva Music Studio to anyone who is looking for piano or violin lessons for their child!

Both of my two children have been going to this studio for over seven years. They have progressed and learned so much from the teachers here. They learned to appreciate music and play the piano wonderfully. The teachers here are passionate, patient, and nice. This studio offers two recitals a year and my children love performing and preparing for them. The teachers also prepare the students for CM Exams. This is a wonderful piano studio that I would recommend to all the students that want to excel at piano and learn to love music.

My 2 kids have been going to Radayeva studio for piano lesson since they are at young age. The teachers are very experienced; focus on technique, skillful and passionate about music and teaching the kid. The owner is a fantastic person and she really cares about her students and their success. My son has recently completed level 10 MTAC Exam and is qualified to perform in the convention recital. We are extremely happy with the studio. Music studio holds 2 recitals every year and it is a pleasure to see them play with honor on the stage. I highly recommend this studio to everyone.

My 7 year old have been going to the school for a year now. Even though he doesn’t like to practice at home (who does?) he is happy to go to class every week. The school offers 2 recitals per year. My son really enjoys it a lot. Thanks to the teacher he has a high level of confidence to perform in front of people.

I am a student at the studio, I have learned next to nothing. My teacher will not be named. The purpose of my complaint is to address some of the problems that I have experienced with my teacher and the studio in general. Facts:
* My teacher is always on her phone during lessons, texting.
* «Between» every single lesson she uses the bathroom, while the students «get setup» … yeah, and while getting charged.
* If I don’t get something, she won’t teach or show me, she will instead tell me to work on it «next week» or emphasize her «point» by telling me that «she has told me last week»
* She completely messed up my intonation and ear training by placing tapes on my violin — trained me to simply «look» at the tape rather than listening to the sounds. To top it off, now that I have a REAL teacher, I found out that the tape placements were wrong, after I got used to the WRONG sounds for well over a year -, —
* Make up lesson is a blessing and hard to come by… Parents are expected to work amongst each other and go back to her because moving schedules around has become «too much work and burdening» for her.
* In the meantime, we have to scramble if she decides to take time off or have «professional performances»
* My violin teacher plays the violin well; however, a good violinist does not necessarily make a good teacher. She does not have the passion to teach, nor the enthusiasm to inspire students to continue to play the violin. At times I dreaded going to class. Other times, I felt depressed because I felt like I’m such a horrible violin player. «Oh I told you that last week already. go practice more at home … «
* Other teachers at this studio are not better either. In one incident, I was sitting in the kitchen area, my violin just by my feet, in front of me. Another teacher walked by and accidentally kicked my violin. Instead of apologizing, she rudely told me to move. I told her that I’m waiting for my class to start in about a minute, she «efficiently» used up the minute by scolding me that I shouldn’t have waited at the «kitchen» area. Well, if they had enough (comfortable) chairs in the sitting area — I wouldn’t be forced to find myself a spot where my violin could be kicked. Without given another opportunity to respond, she simply walked away. I was appalled.
* Also my mouth waters as my teacher eats and drinks (Starbucks coffee — free plug) in the class, really, it’s torture D: Please don’t subject your children to this un-​nurturing environment. There has to be better teachers out there who actually care about their students and who are not only concerned about their paycheck!
Message to owner of studio: I hope this helps your studio become a better place for current and future students.

It felt like a mill here. They schedule lessons back to back, so if you have a lesson from 1−2pm the next lesson is 2−3pm. Apparently, the teachers do not get any breaks. They end up using the bathroom, making tea, taking personal calls during your child’s lesson! And they don’t make up the time lost! Also, we went through so many different piano teachers to find a good fit. The first piano teacher we liked, but she left, the second was rude and condescending, and the third was always yawning and complaining about being tired and overworked with students. Like another reviewer mentioned, the studio is inflexible with their policies.

All 3 of my children are learning piano here from Ms Tatiana Fitch who is a great piano teacher. She is very professional and has a lot of patience. She also has excellent background and experience. Foundational skills in piano is important and she teaches them well. Besides the recital pieces, they also learn other pieces and have finger power and sight reading books to work on.
Each year there are 2 recitals which provide the kids opportunities to perform on stage, an important skill to be developed ASAP. My kids now can maintain calm on stage, something not every adult can do.
The owner Rimma is also a nice person. I wanted to buy a 2^nd hand piano and she took the time to show me what to look for.
I would recommend this studio and Ms Fitch to anyone who wants to learn piano seriously and correctly.

My child has been coming to the studio for 2 years now and we’ve had a great experience, which sounds different than Louis (previous poster). Our family takes 3 week vacations each summer, and 2 weeks each winter, and we’ve always been able to make-​up our missed classes without any problems. And we’ve had 2 different piano teachers at Radayeva.
As far as group lessons go, I did a lot of research on whether those are beneficial or not. There is no strong conclusion one way or the other. The success of group lessons depends on many variables and in most cases unless an ideal pairing of students can be maintained, there is probably more disruption to the learning process by engaging in group rather than individual instruction. You can find some studios that will offer group lessons. Some may only offer them for the very young, beginner students 4 – 6 years old. Our daughter started lessons at a different studio in a group lesson and it was very distracting and slow paced, to accommodate everyone’s ability not just hers. There are too many variables with group lessons and your child may be moving very slowly despite their own ability for progression. Anyhow, I am sure that the owner Radayeva does not offer group lessons for a reason, as she has probably researched and found individual lessons to suit most students better. At Radayeva, my child progressed more in a few months than she did in a year with group lessons at the prior studio. I would like to add, that the prior studio had very good instructors, worldclass performers, but the group setting was not an ideal situation for piano instruction.
In a year’s time, my child learns many different songs, not just a few for the recitals. Maybe Louis’ child is much more advanced and plays difficult and longer pieces that require a lot of preparation. Usually my daughter starts learning her recital pieces up to 2 months before the recitals, otherwise she is learning many other songs during the year.
To anyone looking for a piano studio, I would consider what you want for the $ 2K you will be paying for lessons each year. If you want group lessons and a more laid back studio where having «fun» is the goal then you may not find this studio a good fit. When my daughter was younger after a year of spending $ 2K for «fun» group lessons at a different studio I realized that I couldn’t afford that and we needed to get more out of the lessons which we are getting at Radayeva.

Tiazhelyi, letal’nyi, luchai. Direktor bol’na FGM i CHSV v terminal’noi stadii. Bol’shaja ljubitel’nica vyzveritsia i nahamit’ roditeliam chtoby ulutchit’ sebe nastroenie. Pravila parkovki eto konechno chysh sobachja. Mahrovyi sovok v Pleasantone — esli u vas nostal’gija.

The policy is impossible to follow, only one Christmas break each year. If a family has vacation, they have to pay regular FULL monthly charge and make up lesson by themselves. Most of the students take summer vacation traditionally to go back to visit their grandparents in another county, they have to withdraw and go back which end up pay ANOTHER $ 35 registration fee.
One teacher even refuse to make up A lesson with me, because I have family emergency and I didn’t notice her MORE THAN 24 hours and I have to pay the whole month charge with one lesson missed.
Our violin teacher Velerie spent half year teach ONLY TWO songs (Can you figure out how much does your kids learn?) the other half year, the teacher teach another TWO songs. She cancelled the lessons due to emergency for several times within 24 hours and it is hard to accommodate the make up lesson options she gave me. Her schedule is fully booked up.
My kid ask me to quit violin because he lost interest due the rush lessons.
The good part is that some teachers are musically trained in Russia.

I know nothing of music, but I can tell that my daughter loves to go to piano class, and I know when my daughter plays at home, she sounds great.
This is our second studio here in Pleasanton, the first place, luckilly my wife knows how to play, noticed that they were teaching my daughter left hand notes to be played with her right hand; also, I did not like the group lessons deal, after six months, there was very little growth in my daughter’s skill. Here, at Radayeva’s, wow, what a difference, only after a couple of months, it seemed my daughter is playing better than the kids at the other place who had lessons over a year, enough comparisons to others, back to Radayeva’s. I definitely notice, that piano is taken seriously here, meaning, if you want your kids to learn to play, and even maybe become pianists, this would be the place to take them. The teachers here are great, our current one is so funny, makes me laugh, love this line of hers, my daughter was a little too stiff with her arms, she said to her…“don’t be a fried chicken, be a live chicken, like this,” then she moved her arms up and down in very lively motion. Ok, maybe that might not be that funny to all, but this cracked me up, just saying, they take piano seriously, but they do have silly times too.
A final note, they have rules about parking on their side, not their neighboring business; totally fair, and I hope everyone that joins this studio, will respect that rule. With our kids, the one rule we keep slipping on, our fault, is keeping fingernails really short, I forget what happens, but you do not want to hit down with the nails on the keys, not only does it damage the keys, but also can cause tendon damage due to incorrect finger placement; something like that :). Those are the two rules we are reminded off, completely fair and respect them, and our relationship with this studio has been great so far. One note, recital is at a local church, we have not done it yet, but we went to see one before we chose to come here and it was nicely done, kids play super awesome, great show, and once we are in the recital, I might talk more about how well it went; which I think will be a lot of fun for all of us.