anyone's child started piano lessons age 3?

[nappyaddict]

asking for my cousin who's 3.2 year old keeps nagging to have piano lessons. she thinks he's too young? i know a 3.5 year old who has lessons but i think he's quite old for his age iyswim.

It's not too young if she wants to do it, but they do tend to progress more quickly when they're older! She won't be able to get to grips with learning to read the music so you'd be looking at more of the suzuki/learning by ear type of playing.

I know a piano teacher - he doesn't take on any children under 5 (I'm not remotely musical so I have no idea what the reason is tbh)

def too young unless budding musical genius! Does your cousin have a piano or keyboard? If so, little cousinlet will happily bash away on it until he's old enough to do his practise properly. Honestly, unless he's seriously gifted, settled and able to sit still for 20 minutes, I can't imagine that it would be anything other than a bit of a waste of money to have formal lessons this early.

ds1 started at 4, but the teacher moved away and no one else would take him until he was 6. I think finding teachers who take them that young is hard. Does he know his letters and numbers - ds1 was thrown because things were written in captials and at that stage he only knew lower case. Also does he know which is his left hand and which is is right ? He started using Alfred's Basic Piano Library which introduces reading music gradually. Think some of the others who started when he did may have still been 3 or only just 4. They all made reasonable progress.

yes he's been bashing around on it since he was 2!

My DS started after Christmas aged 5. The piano teacher will not take child under 5. She gave lots of good reasons so DS had to wait, however she did say to encourage him by just bashing about on it and making up tunes but nothing structured and to limit his time on the piano. He has now lessons and really enjoys them.

from what I can recall, reasons given by teachers prior to 5 or 6 are usually something to do with the span of the hand, and willingness to practice.

i'm not particularly musically gifted (or any other gifted for that matter) but my gram taught me to play the piano at about 2.5yrs and i could read music before i could read and write (by about 3.5yrs). it was just something i could do naturally. i didnt have proper lessons til i was 6 but my gran taught me scales, etc.

if he wants to learn, why not see if a relative or friend could teach him rather than formal lessons

hth

dd was 7 when she started the cello (1/4 size) and 8 when she started on the piano.

hand size is a real issue, as would be the difficulty of reading music at that age

Not too young if she wants to do it imo. Suzuki teachers very good for little ones.