Advice re. Piano lessons for a 7 year old

[Fayrazzled]

My children (9 and 7) both have piano lessons and have been doing for over a year. Their teacher is young and friendly and has experience teaching children.

The elder child is getting on on fine, enjoys his lessons, has to sometimes be encouraged to practice, but seems to be making reasonable progress. My daughter is a different kettle of fish though. Out of the two, she seems to be more innately "'musical"' (e.g. Can pick out tunes by ear, was drawn to just ''play' on the piano. She pushed me to have music lessons after my son started as she wanted to do it too. However, she is struggling and unhappy now. She finds reading and following the music very difficult (although she knows the individual notes), she is extremely reluctant to practice so is making little progress, which I know her teacher finds frustrating and I can see her confidence shrivelling up in front of my eyes- if I do manage to get her to sit down at the piano she plays so quietly and cries the first times anything goes wrong but won''t let me happy.

I have suggested to her we give the lessons a rest for now, and she cries. But she isn't practising properly (or indeed, very little at all) and she cries when she does it. Her last lesson was a disaster- I could hear the frustration in the teacher's voice, I could feel the desperation and sadness coming off my daughter in waves and I could have cried too, quite frankly.

What would you do? Give the lessons a miss for now? Try and find a different teacher (maybe difficult as I was finding it last year to find someone for beginners locally) or keep going a bit longer and see if it"'a just a phase?

Many thanks for any thoughts.

Does she need a different instrument do you think? If she's musical but struggling with the piano, might be worth thinking about?

I honestly don't know flowery. I always thought the piano was the best instrument to start with, although I appreciate it is more difficult in the sense you have to read two music staves rather than just one as you would for other instruments.

I started the piano at 11, which I have always felt was too late. I do wonder if 6 was too young for her though, but I was very much guided by her desire to do it (and her teacher didn't think 6 was too young either). It's just so frustrating, she seems to be miserable whichever way I jump. I'm honestly not pushy with her regarding learning (but by the same token I don't want to be spending £60 a month on some thing that is making her sad.

Have you talked to the teacher away from your child? She might have some insight. My husband and I are both classical musicians and we have three teenagers who all play pretty seriously, so I will tell you a few things which occur to me-.

I wouldn't take a child to lessons if she wasn't enjoying them. Of course she will be upset if you suggest stopping because she probably loves music, loves the idea of being able to play, and is humiliated by the idea of quitting, but her tears and reluctance are telling you clearly that something isn't working. (My children were often lousy practisers, but they always had moments of enjoying practice and never disliked their lessons.)

Some of the things that might be causing a problem:

The teacher might not be right for your daughter (too teacher-y or too focused on reading, not enough on playing by ear or doing bits of improv).

Piano might be intimidating as her brother already plays and is a consistent, logical learner, who improves steadily.

If reading music is hard for her, piano is not a great choice and she might do really well starting with a string teacher, maybe one who starts kids off playing a lot by ear (maybe a Suzuki influenced teacher).

Have you tried going to at least part of her lesson and getting suggestions from the teacher about how she should practise? It is really hard for kids to practise effectively at this age, and a good teacher should have lots of ideas about how you can hep her and make it fun.

At this age it is easy to make practise into a little game. For example, you can write down things she has to do on bits of card and have her pick them out of a hat. On the cards, you could write: play right hand of your piece making it get louder and softer, play a scale once very slowly and then very fast ignoring mistakes, get mummy to play you a note on the piano and then you have to find the note, play a tune as loudly as you can, play your piece at the lowest octave of the piano, sing your scale imitating your favourite pop star, etc etc. Then your daughter does five of these activities a day, and you are there praising and encouraging and laughing.

My guess is that her teacher is not making the lessons lighthearted enough, and that another instrument might give her something she can do better than her brother right away.

Good luck and have fun-

I do think 6 is a little bit young to start, but if she was that keen, I sort of understand. However, if she's not enjoying them - to the extent she cries - then it seems a bit silly to carry on. All dc go through not wanting to practice - I wouldn't worry about that too much.
Agree, it would be worth chatting to the teacher to see if she has any insight.

My niece had lessons for over 2 years before they realised she just couldn't read the music at all - almost like a kind of music blindness, which is odd as all other reading is fine. She gave up, and took up the guitar (only needing to read 'D' 'Am' etc to know what chord to play, and has become a real maestro. She's a teen now, and plays piano quite a bit 'from ear' - she seems to be able to just listen to something and then pick it out on the piano, and has quite a good understanding of chord structure from the guitar I guess.

The other thought is maybe doing a bit of recorder with her, so she goes back to basics on reading music - just one line a a time and you get a tune quite easily. Can then transfer to something like flute (same fingering) when she's a bit older / bigger / mouth developed.

I don't think 6 is too young- DS1 started violin and piano at that age. But I think something different from her brother might be an idea. I'm keen for DS2 not to do violin to avoid comparisons.

Thank you so much to you all for taking the trouble to reply.

Clarashu, her teacher is very much against her playing by ear as she is concerned that as she gets on to more difficult pieces she won't be able to do that and if she hasn't a good foundation at reading the music then she'll be in trouble. I see the logic in that, but maybe we just need to concentrate on making it fun again.

I have had brief conversations with the teacher, whom I think is finding my daughter difficult in the sense that she's not getting much from her. My daughter is becoming withdrawn in her lessons and is reluctant to talk to her teacher. I understand that from her point of view that is immensely frustrating. My daughter has admitted to me she is frightened of getting it wrong. Tonight she has told me she wants to give up her lessons. It makes me feel sad because she was so enthusiastic to start with and it seems that has all been quashed. Interestingly, my daughter is extremely tenacious in other areas (much more so than my son!) she really doesn't give up on things she wants to do (e.g. She learned to ride a bike at 4, my son still can't!).

I've told her she can give up if she wishes, but she'll have to have her lesson this week. I'm hoping then to have a really frank conversation with her teacher.

Maybe a break for a bit and then a new teacher. If your daughter is withdrawn in lessons and frightened of getting it wrong that doesn't sound like a good teacher for a wee one tbh.

Gosh - this was us last week! Got some fantastic advice from MN and DD's piano teacher is just fantastic. Together we agreed to drop the formal practice for her Grade 1 and will work on shorter pieces which give her a greater sense of satisfaction (easily to master quickly). DD was also worried about 'getting it wrong' & not being able to read music, although her sight reading is fantastic. Turns out she really enjoys music theory - the worksheets were she has to identify the notes, then play the pieces - I think it gives her the confidence of knowing that she needed.
Hope this helps ..

I would try another approach or another teacher - there are lots of little pieces that can be played by rote, plus working out Christmas carols by ear etc. Or try electronic keyboard - less likelihood of comparing herself to her brother, and only one line of music to read, rather than two.

Incidentally, I teach quite a few instruments, and think piano is one of the hardest to start on. Yes, it makes a nice sound right away, but the second year is so difficult that I've found quite a few bright 8/9 year olds defeated by some of the reading, and have had to move them back a few stages. I am always happy when someone wants to learn it as a second instrument, when a lot of the reading is already in place, and they can concentrate more on the coordination involved.

At 7, your DD is old enough for keyboard, guitar, violin, cello, recorder, flute (probably a curved one), cornet and possibly some other woodwind and brass, depending on her size and whether she has her adult teeth.

Just wanted to say that learning to play an instrument and read music at the same time can be compared to teaching a child to talk by teaching her to read the words at the same time. There are lots of ways to learn, and your daughter might need to fool around with sound for a while before she makes the connection to written music.

Playing by ear is a great way to get kids to really listen.

I also don't think reading music is that important at this stage. My daughter learnt recorder at your little girl's age - she learnt to read the treble clef moderately well though she relied a lot on her memory. Then took up guitar (from tab, not traditional musical notation) and finally self-taught piano this year. She can read music well now - well enough to work out a new piece anyway - but she rarely uses sheet music when she plays as everything gets committed to memory (she has recently started with a piano teacher who sees no problem in this). She loves to improvise and compose.

As someone mentionned above guitar can be fantastic for children with a natural gift for improvisation, and my daughter also uses her guitar knowledge in order to improvise on the piano. However I think 7 is a little young for guitar.

At my children's (ordinary state) school, many of the guitarists start at 5, and quite a few more at 6 and 7. Progress at this age is usually going to be slower, but I've had a fair few young 6s stand up on stage and play solo in school concerts I've put on. So it can be done! Some of my daughter's friends (now Year 4) have taken Initial Pop Grade or Grade 1 Classical, many are reading both music and tab, and all join in playing chords for 'guitar club' items. It's so versatile!

Sorry, I have digressed seriously!

I had piano lessons as a child, as well as music theory. I was good at both but hated piano practice. My mum used to listen to me practising and I hated her hearing me get it wrong, it used to stress me out and make me very frustrated with it all. I gave up when I was about 13 and it's only really now I'm 30 that I regret giving up.
Would it help if your DD could learn to play songs she's familiar with, eg Christmas carols or simple, well known tunes? Might take the pressure off rather than learning for exams?

Talk to the teacher... it's not uncommon for them to have problems especially once they hit hands together and have to read two lines at once. I've had this with students around your child's age and with at least one 10yo. In the case of the younger ones, we back track a bit since none of us are in a hurry to take grades, go back to a level where they feel comfortable and cover lots of tunes at that level whilst trying to encourage them to work them out for themselves and slowly withdrawing the monkey-see monkey-do approach. With the older girl I have in mind, she was excellent at learning by ear and in the end we gave up on traditional piano and went for a keyboard approach - one line of music plus chord symbols (she could play fine hands together, just the reading was the problem).

The other thing I've found is that parents want the child to be able to say "These notes go C, E, F, A" or whatever. I don't teach note-reading like that to begin with, my students initially learn to read by interval - does it go up or down? Step or jump? This means that they can read music pretty well, but when parents ask them to name a note they can't necessarily do this, the parent thinks "She can't read music" and says so, and the child loses confidence. Whether or not that's the case, the trick of up/down step/jump can make the reading a lot easier, so that might be a way to approach it?

Or you can always give up on reading and learn by ear. I once met a seminarian (trainee priest) who had literally taught himself the Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor on the organ just by listening to recordings. Not sure I could do that!