AIBU to be annoyed about music lessons

[MissSunny]

Message withdrawn

MMOC - thank you.

FAQ - I love organ music - it's spectacular and gives me goosebumps. I always thought it must require incredible levels of coordination with using both hands and your feet, and all those voices to select too. And I really am a big fan of recorder - most of the early music played on flute was written for recorder and I really thing it's a shame it's not more highly regarded.

The recorder is an excellent first instrument to learn and is good for learning to read music (simple treble clef, no chords). Everybody used to learn the recorder in school, what happened?

I think 5 is definitely too young to start violin and sustain interest. The cynic in me sees a nice little earner.....

I start recorder with the y2 children, and generally have 5-6 children (of about 20 starters) who are able to maintain interest for the year. Children this young tend to think that blowing a recorder and humming is how to play it!

At this stage I don't teach the stave - just note names and fingering. Children this age are just coping with representing words with letters. It is asking a lot of them to represent music with symbols!

I would leave the violin to Y3 - she will have problems with fine motor movement of fingers at her age and probably get very frustrated. Piano - may be Y2 if she shows an interest. Recorder when her fingers are long enough (prob Y2/3).

"Everybody used to learn the recorder in school, what happened? "

Thank god they don't - I had to relearn 2yrs of "teaching" I'd been given o the recorder when I got a decent teacher.

I'm more happy than you would believe that it's no longer standard practice in all schools to teach the recorder regardless of whether they have a teacher than knows how to play it. It's NOT an easy instrument to learn - infact following on from the comments about the organ being difficult - the organ is EASY to learn in comparison with learning to play a recorder properly - breathing, tonguing, posture etc - oh I hate seeing teachers that really don't know what they're doing screwing it up and end up with a bunch of sqeuaky plastic tubes being "played".

AWWW come on.... I can't think of a single instrument that sounds good played by a five year old. Mine is learning the piano and he is just beginning to stop bashing it (47 euros for 4 1/2 hour lessons incidentally, eat yer hearts out, Brits! )

But the point is that kids have to start somewhere and the recorder is a lot easier than, say, a flute or a violin. Discuss!

DS1 is learning the cornet through the Music for Schoold Foundation, its a charity so everything is not for profit. I pay £4 a week for his cornet (once I have paid £300 its ours to keep), and £5 a week for the lesson, although its a group lesson and only lasts 20 minutes. DS loves his lessons and I think he gets alot out of them.

nope - violin (and flute to a certain extent) needs someone that actually knows (to a reasonable degree) how to play it properly. Recorder you tend to get music teachers who don't really know what they're doing apart from being able to teach the finger and notes "teaching" children who then end up huffing and puffing down the recorder - which then results in the misnomer that the recorder is

"easy to learn"

"produces a horrible noise"

etc etc

FAQ, you sound a bit scary. TBH. When it comes to music teaching.

So what exactly would you recommend for a five year old's first instrument? Which might actually involve a bit of fun, satisfaction and not cost the earth?

Maybe I am scary - but that's because I had such a bad experience when I got to senior school age and wanted to progres further - having to "relearn" from the basic again, and saw 2 people having to give up their music totally because of tendon damage caused by years of bad posture/technique when they were younger. And they were the 2 most amazingly talented people -

Personally I haven't let my children start until they've been in YR3 - but if one had insisted I would have got them piano lessons - and that will still stand for DS2 even though the piano is probably going soon - but that's as I have free access to the church piano literally across the road from my house. If I didn't have that then honestly at 5 with no proper piano access I would get them learning the keyboard.

FAQ - Just wanted to say you should be sent into schools to chat to Heads making decisions about music provision.

My two learned piano and violin, taught well and it never sounded bad. Not even the violin. Not even from day one. It really shouldn't.

Well I would agree that badly played plastic recorders taught by an untrained primary teacher to a bunch of uninterested 7 year olds is hell and is one of the reasons why the recorder as an instrument is majorly unregarded.

I suppose one of the reasons why it was chosen as an instrument to teach in schools is because it is relatively easy to get a sound out of (even an awful screech) and is cheap and pretty much indestructible. I was fortunate in that my recorder teacher at school was a wind teacher who knew what they were doing (but this was back in NZ in the 70s, so very different now).

I am now a big fan of the ukulele which is being used a lot in schools in NZ, instead of the recorder. Much easier to play than the guitar - only four strings and you can play a C chord with just one finger - lighter, smaller and with nylon strings so they don't hurt small fingers so much. Although I expect this, in the hands of an unskilled teacher, will produce as many technical problems as the recorder!

Maybe the real issue is that music in schools is generally under-rated and is sometimes taught by unskilled people with the best possible intentions.

"Just wanted to say you should be sent into schools to chat to Heads making decisions about music provision."

I'll take that as I believe it was meant - sarcastically .

Actually the new head at the infant school has thankfully STOPPED the standard YR2 recorder teaching (which was awful as they used to do it when I was sat in the garden and could hear every little screech ). Though I suspect that's probably because he's a musician himself (bassoon and piano) so probably decided he'd rather have no recorder teaching than the effort that the teacher was doing (and she was doing it because the old (scary) head teacher said she should as she was a musician so could teach recorder).

Agree entirely with Shelling's post. It's true - the sound of 30 screeching yamaha descants can't have done the recorder's reputation much good (although the fact that hardly anyone wrote for it beyond the 18th Century probably hasn't helped either).

But it is a highly convenient instrument for little ones and has to be better than nothing. Should be a lot more singing too.

yes singing definitely, recorders NOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo..........

no seriously - my garden shares a wall with the school, the hall is just the otherside (about 1 meter away) of it. They had their recorder lessons in that hall - quite often in the summer with the door open.......I'm a musician - not a great one, but don't consider myself to be too bad - it was like torture sat in my garden listening to 30 screeching recorders played by 6/7yr olds LOL.

Cherryblossoms (whom I'm sure wasn't being sarcastic at all by the way, FAQ) your two are probably very musical. I don't believe that even the best teacher in the world could get every child sounding delightful on the violin from an early age.

FAQ - NO!!

It wasn't meant at ALL sarcastically!!!

My dd's school is just about to introduce whole-school recorder teaching - in just the way you describe - and it is filling me with complete gloom.

They have such a limited music provision at the moment. It's completely rubbish. And they are just about to make another, completely rubbish, decision. I am SO disappointed.

I'm really, really hoping that she'll come across your comments and have a re-think.

My dcs learned outside of school, which is an option for us but not for other children in the school. I think it is so sad that it is acceptable to pass this off as music tuition.

I think £14 for 20 min is more expensive than private tuition in my area of Scotland. If you don't like the school options look around. We went through the private route as no more expensive than school and wider choice of instruments. Most teachers want you to commit to a certain number of lessons though if they are giving you a time slot. It's their job after all. If going private you may have to buy the instrument rather than hire it, although local music school/ youth band may do hiring. If private you have to take them there and back as well. Why should music tuition be cheap? A good music teacher is worth a decent salary and unless your child is in a state music school the school wwon't be funded for individual music lessons.
£40 for a small violin per term sounds expensive. Stringers of Edinburgh has new child size violins for £75.
Shop around a bit.

It may be that teaching in groups of 30 is the real problem. I have a friend who was a recorder player (a very good one), and who taught it for a while. She did very briefly teach in large groups like this but reported it as a nightmarish exercise in futility.

I seem to remember learning it in a group of about 4 at primary school. It was a good introduction to reading music apart from anything else.

Personally, I think music is shamefully under-prioritised and under-funded in schools.

Agree with Unstrungharp - and would add that it should be taught by somebody who actually knows at least a little bit about music.

Am dreading how badly it will be taught to dd, in her class of 30.

[Ambles off, shaking head and muttering.]

Yes, quite

about the underfunding I mean

I played recorder at 5 and learned to read music that way. My kids were a bit older before their fingers were big enough to cover the holes fully. There are very few specialised recorder teachers, but alot of flautists teach grade 1 and 2 descant and can help develop woodwind technique. It's a good instrument to learn basic music reading on.

my only issue with the "good instrument to learn music" is that if you want to go on and learn an instrument which uses anything but the treble clef - you've still got to learn a new clef regardless >>>>

but there's so much more to music than the clef - that's just a tiny part & it's really not that hard to switch clefs. All the rhythms, time signatures, rests & notation etc are the same.