I taught in big schools for ten years. Then I started this one.
I trained as a pianist — a music degree, a performance diploma, the lot — and spent my twenties teaching in some of the bigger music schools around Singapore. I loved the students. I did not love watching them get shuffled between a different tutor every term, or seeing a nervous beginner put off music for good by a cold, exam-obsessed room.
So in 2014 I opened Forte: a small, warm studio where you learn from the same teacher every single week, where a six-year-old and a sixty-year-old get the same patience, and where the love of playing always sits above the certificate. Three hundred-odd students later, I still teach most of the week myself, and I still answer the WhatsApp.
— Rachel Lim, Teacher & Founder
A few things I believe about learning an instrument
One teacher who knows you
You are not passed between rotating tutors. The same teacher follows your whole journey and remembers your last lesson, your favourite pieces and your nerves before an exam.
Real qualifications, gently worn
A music degree, a performance diploma and years of teaching behind every lesson — but never the cold, conservatory atmosphere that puts beginners off.
Patient with absolutely everyone
The shy six-year-old, the perfectionist exam student and the nervous returning adult all get the same calm, encouraging room. Nobody is rushed.
Exams done honestly
We enter students for ABRSM and Trinity only when they are genuinely ready, prepare them properly, and keep the love of music bigger than the certificate.
Studio or your living room
Learn in our calm Tiong Bahru studio with two grand pianos, or have a teacher come to you across the central and western estates.
A reason to perform
Termly recitals and a monthly performance class give every student something to aim at — and the quiet pride of playing for an audience.
Three of us, four instruments, one approach
Rachel Lim
Teacher & Founder · piano, voice
Rachel started Forte after a decade of teaching in larger schools, frustrated that students kept being shuffled between tutors. A music graduate with an ABRSM performance diploma, she teaches piano and voice and still gets a thrill out of a beginner’s first hands-together piece.
Daniel Soh
Strings & guitar teacher
Daniel covers violin and guitar, from a child’s first open string to Trinity classical-guitar grades. Calm, funny and endlessly patient, he is the reason a lot of self-conscious teenagers actually stick with an instrument.
Priya Menon
Piano & theory teacher
Priya teaches piano and runs our theory preparation, the unglamorous work that quietly unlocks the higher grades. Her exam students are famously calm on the day — because she has rehearsed it all with them long before.