Kids quitting piano

[brooke523]

Hi parents! I’m trying to figure out why kids quit piano lessons. Does anyone have a child who takes lessons but wants to quit?

Lots of reasons

• Don't like the discipline of practising
• It clashes with something else they want to do
• They do too many other things and want to just chill
• They don't feel they are good at it (and, in life, we generally like things we are good at)
• It was only ever the parents that wanted it in the first place
• Don't like / get on with the teacher
• Don't like the type of music the teacher uses
• Don't want to take exams
• Don't want the discipline of scales, etc

Just to be clear, these are various reasons, not my dc

Mine nearly but not quite quit.

Reason was a strong expectation from teacher that he should do exams, and starting exam pieces when he was a long way from ready for the level, so he played the same pieces for a year and was bored stiff.

Instead he quit the exam (I sent off the pieces as-is for a recorded exam - a sacking offence in a parent from a teacher's perspective but as we were going to quit anyway and it seemed a shame to bin a year's work - and actually he did get a distinction), changed teacher, and is still playing. Probably never going to come back to exam track but that's fine.

Lack of variety in between exams repertoire also didn't help.

Thanks!! I can understand the exams situation and high expectations around them. I'm glad you found a teacher who is a good fit for you.

Too much focus on exams. My children teacher let her pick music she was interested in and we parked the exams for a bit. Now she has decided she wants to do the exams. A few years behind her friends but at least she is still playing.

Typically, a child will quit between grade 2-3 as there’s quite a steep jump. Some children find it easy to wing it up to that point. But then, suddenly, a fair bit more work is required.

I would say that it's because piano is a solitary instrument and kids would rather make music in groups. I'm a school music teacher and all my family are string players. From the age of 5, both DDs played in string groups or orchestras and loved the social aspect as much as the music. As they grew up, they took up other musical interests so have played in university and adult orchestras, choirs including a Cambridge college chapel choir, jazz bands and pit playing for shows. One had a couple of years of piano lessons, but was always better at the violin, the other never bothered with piano.