Child's piano lesson

[Wellthatsthatthenisntit]

My DCs both do piano lessons. Age 6 and 9. Recently DC9 has begun complaining about going. It is half an hour a week (lesson) and they do two practices of about 10 mins during the week. Been going 18 months.

My view is that this is non-negotiable. It will help with their development, and future choices in life, and both doing very well with it. I gave up a musical instrument when young, which I regret, and parents never pushed me. I realise I am projecting.

For the record I am not pushy in any other way and they happily do swimming, a team sport (winter and summer) and other activities of their choosing. I don't make them do extra schoolwork or anything like that.

Family member thinks I am being horrible. AIBU?

I'm the same, except I don't demand my child practice. We're working on developing intrinsic motivation. Now she's 8 she does sometimes practice, so it's working. Her teacher does aural, singing and rhythm work with her as well as theory so her musicality is coming along in leaps and bounds. I wanted to avoid the music as a competitive sport attitude I grew up with. I don't play for pleasure now so I consider that a failure . I also didn't want to insist that she be grateful for and not waste something I insisted she have. She has a 20 minute lesson though, and that is enough. Like you I looked at the benefits that music brings and that plays a huge part of it.

When I was about the same age I went off piano, but my otherwise unpushy parents refused to budge and they pushed me to carry on. I also practiced for 30 mins a day.

I carried on until grade 8, and I'm very, very glad that my parents didn't let me quit.

Too many helpful comments to mention individually but thanks - I’m again grateful for the insight. Thinking about it now we used to practise more, which I hadn’t really thought about until now.

I was forced to learn the piano from ages 9-13 and absolutely hated it. The teacher said I had to practice for an hour a day and it made me loathe it even more. I was also forced to learn ballet for nearly 3 years and disliked it, although not to the same extent as the piano. I really wanted to learn karate like my childminders children did (and I had to go and sit and watch their lessons x2 per week) but my DM said karate wasn’t ‘ladylike.’

My point is if your child persistently dislikes a hobby for a few months + then let them finish it once the payment period has finished. Life is short and would you, as an adult, like to be forced to learn something new when you could potentially choose something for yourself and give it a go? This is what we follow with DS(8).

It is interesting how people view practice. My DD started piano and 3, she got to grade 8 and stopped, circumstances as her teacher was ill and had to give up and DD was starting exams and it just sort of stopped. One thing her teacher always said was never refer to practicing, it isn't practicing it is playing and should have the recognition and respect that it is playing music.

I never had an issue with her playing her pieces between lessons. I wonder if there is a psychological element to it.

For the OP I can't see the point of forcing kids to do something like music/sport/dancing if it doesn't interest them. Can't he do something he wants to do?

Excellent idea!

Agree with a few others here, pick up lessons yourself on the piano OP. Realise your dreams and leave your children to realise their own. It's wasted time forcing them to learn an instrument they don't enjoy.

You're being sooo unreasonable. What a waste of everyone's time.

I'd give them the option to change instrument if they get to the end of the year and want to do something else.

This 👆

With the added bonus that you are probably putting them off music completely.

As so many other teachers have said, regular practice is vital; if you ask for an easily achievable target, even if it's just five minutes a day, you might find that, once actually on the spot, they carry on for longer......in other words, initially less but more frequent. I think it's five times to set a mini neural pathway, or something like that; build up muscle memory.
The best practice they will do is the practice soonest after the lesson, when it is fresh in their minds, rather than later on during the week when they have had time to forget what they were taught.
Going back after a week for groundhog day is as excruciating for the teacher as it is for your DC.
If the teacher is agreeable, a brief note being specific about exactly what they should practice could give you a steer.
When they are fresh back from their lesson, get then to show you something new they have done, or an improvement they have made, and be enthusiastic. Maybe DC0 would enjoy teaching you what they have just learned?

Sorry, DC9!

And good point by PP. If you regret your quitting piano OP, why don't you start lessons? If one of your kids really wants to stop then you can take up their slot?

I'm being genuine, lots of adults return in adulthood, or even start from scratch. What better way to process your regret than taking ownership of continuing?

I don't know about the piano, but my dd learned to play the clarinet to a reasonably high standard and her teacher was very relaxed about practising. He would ask her if she'd practised. If she had, they'd move on. If she hadn't, they'd play together for the 45 minute lesson. She never wanted to give up lessons, always wanted to go and had fun. He was a fantastic teacher.

Music teacher here.
Personally I think learning an instrument should definitely be encouraged for all children, but saying it's non-negotiable just seems like it's going to end up with them resenting you.
You need to get to the bottom of why they aren't enjoying it. Is it the pieces, what they are learning? Talk to the teacher about it. Would they rather try a different instrument? I've taught kids who really struggled when they had to do two hands but moved onto a single line instrument instead and progressed well.
Is it that they don't want to do exams? Really genuinely believe kids should never be forced to do exams in music unless they want to. They are also very expensive!
I was very goal oriented so it worked for me and pushed me to practice. But I have several pupils who hate the idea, hate the pressure and instead practise when they find a new piece they love and want to learn.

I’d also highly recommend YOU learning and practising to inspire them and show them that they can achieve anything they want at any age and there’s never any excuse.

"I gave up a musical instrument when young, which I regret, and parents never pushed me. I realise I am projecting."

Yes, you certainly are. Your DC don't enjoy it - would you force them to do a sport they don't enjoy? Or attend a club they dislike? Stop forcing this onto them, they won't thank you for it

YABVU.

"Too many helpful comments to mention individually but thanks - I’m again grateful for the insight. Thinking about it now we used to practise more, which I hadn’t really thought about until now."

Read: thanks for the people agreeing with me, it makes me feel like I'm right

We did it the other way around - strongly encouraged practice for the music lessons they wanted but didn't force it. But we did insist on swimming lessons for a year or so.

For those saying it’s a waste of time to force children to learn to play an instrument…my view is that for many children it provides a valuable experience of learning in a different way

much of what kids learn in school is either down to memory or deduction/comprehension skills. There aren’t that many opportunities in schools to learn through repetition or muscle memory. In fact in subjects like maths and language that would benefit from repititous learning there ain’t time on curriculum . Children who take advanced sports may well learn this, think gymnastics where you have to repeat skills over and over….learning an instrument is like that…even the best natural professional musicians have to study and repeat the piece over and over to perfect it and acquire that muscle memory.

my 2 kids were both bright and academically sound. But my eldest particularly liked to learn through observing, he’d watch, read, listen until he was happy he could do something then just do it. He never, left to his own devices, learnt anything through repeating, making mistakes, repeating etc etc.

im not a natural musician and didn’t get further than grade 3, but even as a youngish person I realised that learning an instrument made me learn in different ways than I was used to, and a bit out of my comfort zone, and in life you just sometimes have to learn through practice makes perfect. I’m 60 and since retiring and taking up a specific handicraft activities I’ve come to really value again the benefits of practice as a skill and tool to learn, and have confidence to know I can learn this way

i made my kids have instrument lessons solely for this point. I didn’t expect to turn them into great musicians but at very least it would give them experience and skills to learn something in a different way. It’s an added bonus that my eldest particularly kept up with his instrument ( not through grades mind) and as an adult still plays it now. He got some great social experiences and friends as a result of his music and participation in performing,

i do think the way music is taught does make it more difficult or less than enjoyable for most kids.

Years ago I listened to an eminent musician and teacher talking about this on a Radio 4 programme. He made the point that children learn to talk through listening not reading. Reading comes much later when they’ve grasped the basics of talking, understood how to put sentences together and can express themselves. Reading enables children to then expand their vocabulary and understand how others express themselves
he advocated music is no different. Children should be taught to play first by ear only- forget written music and notation. Teach them to listen to music recognising the language in different rhymes and chords that relate to different types of music. That made so much sense to me.

both my kids started learning woodwind instruments . Traditional music teaching, notation, grades etc. they did find it difficult and I did find I had to make them practice ( see my earlier post on why I wanted them to persist). But once they got to secondary they had a chance to switch to guitar. They had a fantastic teacher who used method advocated in the programme I listened to. Their teacher got them to listen to music, different types, to learn to pick out the chord, rhymes etc by ear and copy back. They’d come back from lessons with having covered stuff like “ jazz” “ Latin” “ R&b” and I had never realised in all my childhood music lessons that certain chords, scales etc are associated with certain types of music 🤦‍♀️ but they were being taught this by actually listening. Yep, they still had to practice, but it was all now based on copying sounds. And that made a massive game changing difference. My sons eventually could go online to find random music being played, stuff they liked, and then slowly dissect it through listening and then copying it

Music was a non-negotiable for me as well. I started off on the recorder, and moved to the violin, doing that from age 8-16.
I didn't enjoy the practicing, and can't say I especially enjoyed the lessons, but I DID enjoy playing in youth orchestra etc, and going to Saturday morning music school.
I stopped doing the exams after grade 4, because I HATED the pressure of them, but kept up with lessons and music school just for fun. I was probably a low grade 7 standard at my absolute best.

I was forced to do piano lessons as a child, til I was 14. I absolutely hated it. I got to grade 5, still hated it. I never play now

That's not enough practise.
But anyway, why push it? How does it help with their development and future choices?
My daughter gave up piano at a similar age. Then four years later asked to take it up again. This time she was self motivated and I didn't have to remind her to practise.
If they aren't pestering you to let them do something then why waste your money?

They're not practicing enough for it to be worthwhile doing it.

You need to sit beside them daily while they practice. One day off a week.

If you can't be bothered to do that then they should definitely stop. But they would probably on balance have a different attitude if you put the effort in.

Don't do it when they are cold, hungry or just when they know it would be time for screen time if they didn't have piano.