Musical child- how unusual is this?

[LondonGirl83]

Sorry for the long post!

My Dd is 5 and plays the piano fairly well- she plays grade 1 pieces and her teacher is planning to start her on grade 2 pieces in the new year.

However, she can play pretty much any melody she’s heard by ear with almost no effort and is starting to try to figure out the accompanying chords now (she just does this for fun). She also has very good relative pitch- so if you play any note and name it, she can easily name any note you play after that in any order and often times can guess the first note too. She likes to transpose the songs she’s learning into different keys and octaves for fun as well.

Her music teacher at school and tap teacher have both mentioned she is really strong at pulse and rhythm and her private piano teacher improvises with her and gets her to make up songs and also thinks she’s very musical. She also sings pretty well for her age.

I know she is above average musically but how unusual is this?

I’m asking as she’s interested in lots of things - does dance, swimming and clubs at school. She’s asked to start a second instrument but also wants to do gymnastics, tennis and coding!
That would be far too much so I’m trying to decide which one additional activity to potentially do based on where she might really benefit from it.

She is quite sporty as well but I think her musical talent is more unusual though it’s hard to benchmark.

TIA

I’m sure you’ll get the usual mumsnet crew saying they have a prodigy and she’s nothing special but I’d have thought she does have quite an unusual aptitude for a 5yo. Grade 1 often takes a long time on piano for little ones so that alone would be good going but I can’t imagine there are many kids that age transposing etc.

At 5! That's amazing. The playing by ear, transposing, improvising. Clearly a natural talent.

That's very unusual imo. If she wants to learn another instrument I think you should let her

Very unusual. Gifted!

Being able to figure out chords at 5 is quite unusual, I'd say.

Very advanced

I'd also say that's really unusual/well above normal level for a 5 year old.

But I wouldn't let that limit the other things she can do, especially not at 5! I don't think 'you're so good at music you can't do gymnastics/tennis/coding' is a road you should go down. Let her choose which one extra activity to do, give it a try and then move on if it doesn't interest her.

If music is where her heart is then she'll always come back to it.

She is amazing! Can I ask what age you started piano lessons?

I'm assuming she's very bright, generally? Kids like this tend to be all rounders. I have a very bright child and you know when you have one - they're just different. Musical ability goes along with being gifted.

@NuffSaidSam she does art and sports club at school and private swimming lessons and dance in addition to the piano. If it were up to her she’d do every sport and every activity!

I should say she is only just starting to add chords and isn’t anywhere near as good at that as melody.

She also transposed by ear. She just likes playing around with songs to hear how they sound played different ways. It’s nothing intellectual or even time consuming. She’ll just do it and comment on if she likes it better that way or not type thing.

She’s no prodigy but genuinely loves music and seems to understand it on a cellular level from a very young age.

She sounds like a very talented little girl OP! My sister and I could both do this when younger, (myself violin and my sister piano) and my parents allowed us to choose and additional instrument and basically teach ourselves (we also had various other clubs and classes) which we did and we loved. We both still adore music well into our adulthood! My dad is incredibly musical so we've always been around it. I say from personal experience, whilst she has a natural talent and she loves it, maybe letting her have a go at another instrument in her 'free time' might be an option?

I have absolutely no idea how unusual it is as I have an 8 month old who loves her keyboard but her abilities are limited to bashing the keys with the palm of her hand! Just wanted to ask though - was there anything that you did with her when she was little that helped her become talented, music wise? How old was she when she started piano?

I’m sure you already know it’s very unusual for any child to be able to play music spontaneously by ear. Did you think it was common?

I would speak to her piano teacher, does the teacher know she can do this?

It sounds unusually bright, perhaps gifted, to me.

I was similar at that age in fact I didn’t have piano lessons until I was eleven and then only for a year, but I am otherwise self taught, play entirely by ear and I also have relative pitch.

your DD clearly has a talent but I agree with pp that learning another instrument in her spare time might be a good idea rather than signing her up to yet more lessons.

Also bear in mind that being musical doesn’t necessarily mean she will be able to pick up any musical instrument and play it. I play the piano, the guitar and the flute, but I am definitely a keys player and the other two instruments come a far second. Iyswim.

Sounds exceptionally gifted to me. My 9 year old has just passed Grade 1 piano and my 16 year old is shortly due to sit his Grade 8. Both are musically able children, but what you're describing is at another level altogether.

I would speak (privately) to her music teacher and ask her to recommend another instrument - 5 is physically very little so I don't believe she could do much with woodwind, for instance, but she'd probably be off like a rocket on a uke or small guitar.

I wouldn't necessarily go down the lessons route for her second, or potentially not as often. So if she's doing piano every week and starts guitar then I'd only do that once a fortnight and find a teacher who is willing to just do technique with her - there's no point her repeating the technical things she's already doing in piano. Make instrument 2 more a fun add-on. She could maybe even do that in a group, so it's cheaper and less pressure.

@Lentilbaby she started lessons at 4. She actually wanted to learn the guitar but she was far too small so we agreed to let her do piano instead.

@Kanaloa I already said I know she's above average. There is a range though between average and prodigy (which she isn't). I'm just trying to gauge if her talent is like 10% of children or more like less than 1%. She's quite sporty as well so I'm trying to figure out if we do let her do another activity as she's requesting if its sport or more music as it won't be both.

@StressedToTheMaxxx we didn't do anything unusual. She went to baby classes that incorporated singing and music and we sang to her daily. She had a toy piano, a tambourine etc. We listen to a lot of music in our house though. From a young age (2 years old) she liked a wide range of musical genres and had strong opinions on songs and parts of songs. She also came to understand the structure of songs quite well. So during a song she'd never heard at a festival, at 2 she told me the song was going to end soon when the bridge began which was its function in that song kind of thing. Again, though I think that's how her brain works rather than anything we've done.

This sounds like genuine natural ability to me. I believe I was like that as a child though I never played piano (we could neither afford nor did we have space for one). I’ve always been able to do the relative pitch thing and transpose and am good at scales etc. I’m a woodwind player but have also played brass.

im thinking that the recorder might be good for her, she could easily self teach from the abracadabra books (so could be more like fun) and it’s a good precursor to other wind instruments (and played well it doesn’t need to be annoying). I self taught recorder from around her age and then moved on to flute lessons aged 10.

At our primary school they start peripatetic lessons for violin in year 1 so that’s also an option, but from y3 you can play anything with the peripatetic system.

you could also look at the Suzuki method as she sounds very able and again could probably self teach.

I'd say she was at the 1% end tbh. Second instrument I'd suggest should be one she can play in a group - violin maybe? Good for small hands (though sounds like hell till the technique is mastered!). Is she confident socially? It sounds as if she could well end up leading an orchestra! Cello would work if you dont mind lugging it around and she's too introvert to lead.

She is clearly talented, but why does she need to choose so early? My dcs do 2 instruments, singing, drama, sports, coding, and they enjoy all of it. My dd got grade 1 in violin at 5, and in piano and singing at 6. She has perfect pitch and we call her the human jukebox as she can sing almost every song she had heard a couple of times pitch and word perfect without music or lyrics. She is still in primary school and now around grade 6 in her instruments, and I think she still enjoys her music because it's just fun and not the main focus in her life. She practices ca 15- 20 min a day on each instrument and in the holidays and on weekends, amongst other activities, she spends some more time composing and playing tunes from ear for fun etc. There were some dc at her school that got tograde 8 at around age 8 in 2 instruments, and even though they practiced more than my dd, they still managed to do sports, coding etc, as well as lots of academic work (one of her friends took his maths GCSEs around the time he took his 2 grade 8s). There are a good number of musical geniuses out there, so even an exceptional child is not going to walk into any scholarships/conservatories/music career, and often musical children have other talents, too, so don'twant to become professional musicians. So from having experienced quite a lot ofusic in children, I think it's great to nurture such talent, but it can easily be nurtured beside other interests, and I don't think it's healthy or even necessary to narrow her options, interests and development so early. Just because she is musical doesn't mean she might not be also great at coding or swimming or that she might exceptionally love cooking or gymnastics, so let her explore her talents a bit more if this is financially possible.

But definitely get her to learn a second instrument (an orchestra/band one), and music theory, sight reading and aural. This is what she will need should she want to take music more seriously one day.

@titchy yes, she's very confident socially and is described as an extrovert in her school reports. She actually has asked about the cello though despite its size.

@Tonsiltrouble that's really interesting. I hadn't thought about Suzuki.

@NellyBarney I think you haven't read my post properly. She already does loads but wants to do even more. We don't have the time to do more than swimming, piano, dance and one other activity. She isn't my only child so there is a balance to be struck. I work full time and I think it would be way too tiring for her at 5 on top of the clubs she does at school to do more than one more activity. She goes to private school so gets exposure to lots via school. So for me, what we do outside of school has to be purposeful.

She already does music theory via her piano teacher and at her school and her sight reading is decent. She's in aural club at school but its quite easy for her and her piano teacher says she doesn't need to practice it as she can hear it all without any training. I'm trying to decide between adding a 2nd sport or a 2nd instrument. She's very sporty and loves both pursuits equally so I'm trying gauge which is her greater talent as the tie breaker. I don't have any desire for her to do music as anything more than a hobby. I have good friends who are successful professional classic musicians. It's a very hard life and a calling rather than a choice. It's not an ambition a parent can have for a child.

The piano is a great grounding but most children will prefer to play in groups with others. I'd definitely go for an orchestral instrument - either the violin or cello - and see how she gets on.

If she has expressed an interest in the cello, I'd go for that. You can get small cellos, in the same way that you can get small violins, so you would definitely be able to find one of a suitable size and it will make a much more pleasant sound than a small violin!

Although cello is a lovely instrument and easier on the ear violinists get to play a wider range of music. With her talent she might be a natural for jazz.

I would have thought that Suzuki violin or recorder would be the best fit for her at this stage to allow plenty of time for other activities including a second sport. See what she prefers.