Music lessons are a waste of time for most kids

[Baldrick23]

I don't mean this too horribly but when I hear that Jonny is a brilliant musician and has grade 7 aged 14 and might go to music school I die a bit inside.

So Im shaped by personal experience here. I did all the grades on the cello by 12 and was a decent cellist and a music scholar. But what parents need to understand is a couple of things. Unless you have grade eight at about 8 (or very soon after starting if later) then you aren't going to be a concert soloist. Even if you do you probably aren't going to be a concert soloist. I wouldn't even have probably made it to be a decent cellist in an orchestra earning 30k for a tricky life touring and barely able to afford anything. So everyone should remenber music is just for fun. None of the kids are going to make it. Just find out how talented you need to be "just" to be a music teacher at a school.

I cant say this out loud at the school gate so I'm saying it here!

Oh and if they love sport get them private 1 to 1 coaching even if they arent the next messi. Just as worthwhile. Forcing talentless musicians to scrape their way humourlessly to grade 2 is awful for everyone involved

@SweetforOrchestra I’m from Ireland and was spared the JD/competitive parent madness growing up as it just doesn’t exist there (in the same way!) it's interesting that you have developed such an impression about JD parents. Your DH told you? Most of the kids being good at JD is because of that they are simply talented not because of the madness of their parents.

I know someone who self-taught themselves saxophone at 17 and became an incredibly successful muscian playing in orchestras, pop bands had number one hits and also played on records with the The Beach Boys. Please define success?

@Ubertomusic Phil started at 7 I think? He was in my year at conservatoire and I know him well. As you say, he comes from
a brass band family and any child growing up in a musical household will have a great head start.

You’re also completely misrepresenting what I said (which was quite nuanced and detailed in relation to specific instruments) and misquoting me. My main point was that it isn’t necessary to start at very young ages in order to make a career in music. This is particularly true on wind and brass but it is also true on strings and piano. My DH started the latter at 9 and I’m sure with a bit of effort you’ll be able to track him
down on Google.

I think from your posts you’ve got children who are in the thick of it now. But time will tell who actually wants to make a career out of it and who succeeds in doing so, and it’s not always the JD stars or the kids who started youngest or whatever.

The slash there means “or” - I wasn’t saying anything about JD parents in particular.

There are lots of competitive parents in music though (and in dance, sport, drama too).

Frankie rose - thank you x

she sounds very cool!

You cannot honestly say that an international competition winner is "less musical" than someone else at auditions. There are not so
many of such winners at this age anyway.

I'm OK with people commenting my posts and I'm not in the habit of telling people to leave social
platforms if they have opinions different to mine. I just said I had no questions as I knew it's very subjective and about personal preferences of the panel - not about grades or being "more musical" whatever this means.

I have always said that true talent will show whatever age an instrument is started. I also think it is important to have a childhood and pursue different interests and to simply play and be able to use their imagination. In addition, I do not think it is necessary to begin formal instrumental lessons before school age, either. In my many years of experience, eight is the best age for the vast majority of children to begin piano lessons - the term before the eighth birthday for girls and the term after for boys. Seven is a good age for starting violin lessons. I began learning the piano just before my seventh birthday and took to it from the beginning. I had a few hiccups with serious illness and a house move - l probably lost around two years' worth of lessons because of this. However, I kept myself going. I had excellent teachers as a teenager and was really able to take flight then. Having learnt recorder at school, I was able to have a good introduction to ensemble playing. When I was 12 ½, I had the chance to learn the violin through the excellent peripatetic scheme of the seventies and eighties. I took to it straight away and loved the opportunity to play in (auditioned) youth orchestras as l progressed. In those days, music colleges insisted on a first and second study instrument and your second instrument had to be at a fairly high standard. I had piano as my first instrument and violin, later viola as my second. I didn't know until I was sixteen that I had perfect pitch - l thought all trained musicians heard music as l did and could read sheet music like a book, "hearing" the notes at pitch in my head. I have also had impaired hearing most of my life. I have had a wonderful career as a teacher on my three instruments and as an accompanist.
My second example is my school friend, a 'cellist. He started lessons at school through the peripatetic scheme at the age of nine and had these twenty minutes per week lessons until the age of sixteen when he passed grade 8 with one of the highest marks in the country. He had private lessons in the sixth form, went on to the Royal Academy of Music and, after graduation, was offered a choice by two of the most prestigious orchestras in the UK.
My final example is my pupil who began piano lessons when he was seven and is now, aged sixteen, in a Saturday junior department. He has, in the year since he started there, had a composition chosen for professional performance. He was by far the youngest of the five who were chosen and the only second study composer. His piano playing is sublime and he has a great future ahead of him.
This is why I find the pushiness that certain, very obviously London-centric posters have displayed, most alien. All these young children with grade 8. To me, this sounds rushed and more for the boasting of the parents basking in the reflected glory of their offspring. These children are obviously talented, but is the pushing necessary for most of them to achieve this really worth it in the long run? I reiterate: true talent will out whenever a child begins to learn an instrument and 99.9% recurring of people have no ambitions for a career in music, but almost everyone can reap benefits from learning an instrument.

Yes I agree with you. I graduated from RCM too and totally agree, most of my cohort hadn’t been at a Saturday junior department and certainly hadn’t started young young.

Completely wrong to think only those who started when they were toddlers will make it- it’s just not true at all!

Exactly, so we cannot say "he started at 7", he's just been living it from birth. But here we have a fine example of what it takes to have a soloist career (of course he's not just a soloist but you know what I mean) - his siblings come from the same family but they're not top-5 in the world like Phil.

I'm not misquoting you, that's exactly what you said: "As you will know, you can start strings and piano young but most woodwind and brass instruments can’t be properly learned until late primary or later". Your post was not about the career, but about the ability to learn the instrument. That's when I asked you what do you mean and you went on to say that Guildhall starts children early on the horn and that's a terrible idea. But initially you claimed that most wind and brass - MOST not just horn - cannot be properly learned until late primary. Which is simply not true in reality. Even if Phil Cobbs started at 7, it's not late primary, is it? Why do you think it's OK for Phil but not OK for other children?

I've never ever said it's impossible to have a career if you started late, please stop putting your words in my mouth. It would be as daft to say as "early g8 at auditions are less musical".

I'm not telling about my children either - mine is average at best compared with some super talented and very hard working peers. But the most exceptionally talented child I know at JD is not going to do it professionally as their parents won't let them - it has to be Oxbridge and investment banking, not music, God forbid!

Yes, it’s definitely possible that an international competition winner performed less well than someone else at auditions. It happens all the time that people have a bad day or make mistakes they wouldn’t otherwise make. Or it might have been for other reasons other than how they played. It’s a bit pointless speculating.

I thought Jacky Zhang’s young musician audition was interesting in this context - his Bach interpretation was bizarre and not to my taste (or some of the panel’s), and there were also numerous slips in it, but he still got through. No one can deny he is immensely musical and gifted, but a different panel might not have put him through on the strength of that performance alone.

It would be great if you would stop misunderstanding and/or misinterpreting me - I didn’t say you should leave mumsnet because we disagreed.

@Ubertomusic you are so argumentative and I really don’t know why.

In the post I was talking about you said this:

And since musicians on this thread say "it's bad for the child to start wind or brass at 6, it's a terrible thing to do"

You have used quotation marks there, but that is not what I said. So you misquoted me. I also said most wind or brass, not all. And I explained why.

I’m not going to engage with you further as I don’t think I deserve this level of rudeness and aggression. I’m just trying to share my experience and counter the posters (and the OP) who think that a career in music isn’t open to you if you haven’t achieved grade 8 by 8 years old.

I hope your children enjoy their musical experiences.

Performing "less well" - and this is also very subjective as per your example of Zhang's audition - doesn't make them "less musical".

"If you're not happy about people commenting your posts, maybe social media is not for you" is a standard passive-aggressive cliche, there is nothing to misinterpret or misunderstand here.

I would also appreciate it if you could stop ascribing other people's notions to me. I never said it's only early starters who could progress to a career of a musician - musician being a very wide term, not just soloist as in OP.

@Ubertomusic cool but I didn’t stay any of that. Is English your first language? You
are consistently missing or ignoring the nuances in my posts.

I reiterate: true talent will out whenever a child begins to learn an instrument and 99.9% recurring of people have no ambitions for a career in music, but almost everyone can reap benefits from learning an instrument.

Perfect answer to the original question and perfect reply to those urging children to start training children to play before they've been trained to use a potty....

Sorry I thought you were not going to engage with me further, now you want to know if I'm foreign? 🤔

We are Roma so usually multilingual. Does it make a difference for you? I can read very well, thank you :)

So you didn't say any of "If you don't want people to respond to what you say then a chat forum might not be the place for you"? Who typed that then?? 😂

As a Romani person I find your claim about children not being able to learn most wind and brass instruments properly until late primary absolutely hilarious tbh. If pointing out to the facts contradicting your opinion (be it Phil Cobb from British brass bands or Gypsy brass bands or Guildhall students - btw it's not very professional to say about your colleagues from Guildhall that they are doing terrible things, and I hear that Guildhall is better for brass than RCM though it's debatable of course) anyway if this is "being argumentative" then yes, I am argumentative. Sorry! 😂

I've just Googled JD for the benefit of those of us who are not sending our kids there - it means 'Junior Department' (of a top music school like Royal School of Music etc). The fact that parents can throw these terms around without explaining them to other people outside this system and at the same time claim that their child / they do not take part in the competitive nature of this stuff as it's purely talent that makes their child do it makes me laugh quite honestly.

I did GCSE Music, as an averagely competent young musician - while I was never going to set the world on fire with my treble recorder, I had the uplifting experience of creating bigger, beautiful sounds with a group of others, whether it was the choir or the orchestra or even the recorder group. I listened to a lot of different kind of music and learned to pick it apart a little. But mainly, I experienced the joy of singing loudly, aerobically, emotionally, uninhibitedly: something that's stayed with me all my life, through good times and bad, even if it's just in my own kitchen.

These are positive experiences for young people, and almost certainly what my aspirational lower MC parents (who hadn't had the privilege of lessons themselves) had in mind when they first plonked me on a piano stool aged 6, not the expectation that one day they'd be seeing me at the Royal Albert Hall. When both my parents were in their final days, we listened to our favourite music together, and it filled the agony of the silence better than words could.

very obviously London-centric posters

I have to admit, I was thinking this. Perhaps it's different out here in the provinces!

I volunteer at a couple of local music festivals, and there are children from the nearby specialist musical school entering, as well as a big "extra-curricular music school" that has a lot of very good pupils. I still don't think I've ever seen an eight year old in a grade 8 class.

Grade 6 yes, but in general I would say that they seem to get to Grade 6/7 quickly then spend a couple of years consolidating or maybe working on their second instrument before they do Grade 8. It's very unusual to have a primary school pupil in a grade 8 class in my experience.

(I also have one of those "portfolio career" musician DPs and he didn't get any of his multiple G8s that young.)

I know one JD teacher doesn't like Langlang and it doesn't prevent he is a great pianist. You don't like Jacky's Bach interpretation doesn't prevent that he is one of the best British young pianist.

This is what it is all about imo. 👏

There's some bloody sharp elbows on this thread. Talk about over invested!

Huh?!

My daughter is 11 and has piano and singing lessons.

She's a good few grades behind a lot of the kids she goes to school with as (piano especially) we very much treat as a hobby. Luckily we found a piano teacher who feels the same and gives her plenty of chance between grades to play fun pieces.

I was never going to force her through grades etc.

But. I think it's wonderful to be able to read music and play an instrument. She's naturally quite musical and so we've encouraged that.

She has a really incredible singing voice and so does practice her singing more and her school encourages her to do more with that 'instrument'

BUT

None of us have any dreams of it making her any money etc or shaping her life.

Just the same as she didn't do swimming lessons or dance classes for those to turn into a career.

She's just a child and we want her to experience lots.

As someone who's parents didn't put me in any extra curricular lessons and so I got to my teen years not having the confidence to join any sports or music or dance clubs etc as I felt so behind compared to schoolmates I wanted different for her.

True.
Well said.

But the parents bragging that their dc has grade this that or the other, are weirdos. 😜

This is beautiful ❤️

@flyhalf- that is a beautiful story. Thanks for reminding me what all this is really for. It is easy to get caught up and panicky with music sometimes when you have a child who gets really into it (and the weird little world it can become for some) and forget it really is about people and connection.

i hope it continues to provide joy to all the children an d parents on this thread who are continuing to get so much out of it!

Yes, exactly. That was precisely my point.