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June 2020 Member Spotlight - Shanti Kosasih


Chris W

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Hey PWJ members,

Hope you are all well, and enjoying playing the piano! It's that time again to announce the Member Spotlight for the month of June....

And for this month it goes to.....

Shanti Kosasih!

Shanti has made a big impact on the Facebook group, with her level of piano playing, inspiring other members to post videos and to work hard at learning how to play this instrument.  She often encourages other PWJ members in the group, as well as participating in the different PWJ monthly challenges.

Well done, Shanti - this Member Spotlight is well deserved!!

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Here is her Member Spotlight:

1. Where are you from?

•    I was born and grown up in North Sumatra, Indonesia but I have been living in Perth, Western Australia for 13+years now.


2. When did you start playing piano?

•    I started playing piano since I was in Kindergarten, around 5-6yo perhaps. My mum took me to one of our family’s friend and  funnily  I remember my mum asked my  teacher when I could learn how to play pop songs as my parents were not familiar with classical. In my first 3-4 years, I had switched to 2 private piano teachers and didn’t show any improvement so my mum sent me to piano music school. This school was one of the first music schools in Indonesia and  the tuition  was quite expensive for my family at that time. Although my parents don’t have any musical background but they really supported me, my dad took me 3-4 times weekly to music school using motorbike, it’s quite a big commitment as we were all required to do solfege class twice a week and percussion in order to have piano lesson. 


3. What got you interested in learning music?

•    When I was really young, there’s a local tv show where there’s children singing and a lady accompanying the singing and I always pretended to play along on my parent’s coffee table. My mum caught me doing that lots of times and from there my musical journey was begun.


4. What is your favorite style of piano music? 

•    I love romantic expressive style, kind of ballads but I’m starting to love blues now.

5. Do you have any favorite pieces to play?
    
•    I love Chopin’s Nocturne and Chopin’s Ballade

6. What has most helped you most in improving as a pianist?

•    Positive thinking and community are the biggest roles. I never felt confident as musician as I always felt I was not good enough so I had that phobia to perform or even just played for exam, I remember I always got tummy aches and my whole body was shaking in the examination room. I’m much more confident now after joining PWJ.


7. Do you have any tips for other PWJ members?

•    Keep sharing either your knowledge or your progress as it might inspire other people and not to rush the progress as I have skipped lots of intermediate courses and I’m regret as I could feel the gap. I definitely will take my time to revisit the courses again.


8. What is your favorite part of the PWJ Membership?

•    Sharing music and learn from each other in PWJ is my favourite part, it keeps me motivated.  As I mentioned above, the community really makes differences.


9. What are your future music goals?

•    My future goals are be able to arrange music in jazzy way, improvising and play music in different keys. The most important if I can use my musical skill to give happiness to other people.

10. Do you have any words you try to live by or a favorite quote?

•    'Give, even if you have a little'  and  another one ' We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thought. With our thoughts, we make the world.'
 

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Here here Shanti! So well deserved. Right from the day I joined,  you were supportive and welcoming 😁. Your posts have inspired me many times and recently in our All Blues challenge has been a brilliant collaboration as we all improved together. One final mention, including your children in the PWJ world has 
been great too, with your most recent family post! So well deserved!! 😁🎹

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So well deserved, Shanti!  

Great answers to the questions.  I also love the romantic period of music.  Your posts have been very inspiring and I keep listening to your post from the other day of the All Blues Challenge. 

I always enjoy listening to you play and look forward to continuing on this musical journey with you.  👏👏👏 

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Hey! This is such a nice and well deserved accolade Shanti and you can be well proud of yourself here. I've only been here, think it's about 3/4 weeks now?, but have had the pleasure of seeing two of your video posts now.  As I said then, you have such expressive light and shade to your playing - those classical lessons and rides on motorbikes wasn't wasted at all!  : ) and you have great dexterity, too.

Really nice to see these 'questions and answer' things here  as well with everyone showing a different journey how they got started ,makes good reading.  It can be really inspiring to everyone else on their own journeys too, fab!

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15 hours ago, BRIAN H said:

Hey! This is such a nice and well deserved accolade Shanti and you can be well proud of yourself here. I've only been here, think it's about 3/4 weeks now?, but have had the pleasure of seeing two of your video posts now.  As I said then, you have such expressive light and shade to your playing - those classical lessons and rides on motorbikes wasn't wasted at all!  : ) and you have great dexterity, too.

Really nice to see these 'questions and answer' things here  as well with everyone showing a different journey how they got started ,makes good reading.  It can be really inspiring to everyone else on their own journeys too, fab!

Thanks  Brian!! yes, especially the motorbike rides in thunderstorm is so memorable😂

Looking forward to your posts too Brian👍

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Congrats on the spotlight! You have always been one my favorite players to watch and lear from! Your parents deserve an award for their dedication to move you into music when you were young. Some people seem set up with circumstances surrounding their upbringing to just ‘be’ piano players! That’s some serious piano privilege😀!
Keep doing what you were born to do! -And thanks for all the encouragement - when I found out you had some similar challenges effecting your playing capacity it gave me a lot of strength to not give up bc of it🙏🏻🥰.

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  • Katie Rushing changed the title to June 2020 Member Spotlight - Shanti Kosasih

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