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

I agree with the op ; fantastic if a child enjoys music and is happy to learn an instrument for pleasure and all the other benefits.

But a decent career in music is unbelievably difficult to achieve and maintain. I have 3 siblings who are professional musicians and wow it's a tough way to make a living.

That's a usual sneering comment about "less musical but drilled since nappies" children - in fact, exceptionally talented children from our cohort have been "drilled" roughly as much as "just talented" or "not so talented".

I won't make denigrating comments about your DC as you did about mine.

The early grade 8 I know did grade 3, grade 5, 2 terms later then grade 8 a year later, while maintaining at least a couple of non music related hobbies. Two years later they had grade 8 in two unrelated instruments (and still did their other hobbies).
Some children are just talented.

Semperldem, my son 8, also had a very talented boy in his class who went on to win the BBC young musician of the year. He played at the end of term concert and you would have heard the cheer from the other boys miles away.

I know of a child who won at a serious competition - not BBC but not a village festival either, and that was competing against internationals. Very musical not just technical.
They didn't get an offer from RCM.

Sempelderm, he also went on to a specialist music school, the Yehudi Menuhin one .

In London you can't have any pastime without it being incredibly competitive, even as a kid. Maybe even especially as a kid. I wonder if this is the same across the country. It's a shame because it makes everything about drive and achievement (or effortless talent if you believe in such things) and leaves very little room for just enjoying stuff, doing it for the sake of it, or thinking about all the other skills and qualities it can bring you. Also sucks the joy out of everything as you can't wholeheartedly congratulate your mates when they do well in case they might be better than you.

This is interesting- my kid is a horn player. He started at 7 but he was early getting his adult teeth so that must have been a factor. He’s probably encountered your H if he’s a horn tutor as he auditioned and got offers from 5 or maybe 6 conservatoires. He absolutely doesn’t want to be a soloist but loves what he does. My friend was a professional musician and always advised against it too!
Grade wise he did 8 aged 15 and now aged 20 hasn’t done any further diplomas or the like but his playing has come on immensely.

No DH isn’t horn - that’s my instrument! An excellent choice on your DS’s part :) Best of luck to him!

I wonder how many kids you met at JD got grade 8 at 8 for you to get this conclusion. Many JD students don't bother to take grade exam. I know Jacky Zhang quite well who is an exceptional to get grade 8 when he was 7. He started to study at RCM before 13 and now an excellent concert pianist. Do you know any JD student with grade 8 at 8 is not musical?

There's quite a good body of evidence to support the idea that learning an instrument has positive effects on the human brain in terms of improving memory, cognitive ability and improves mental health. I wouldn't consider any of that a waste of time.

Not every passion pursued is done so with the intention of turning it into a lucrative career. Many people play instruments because they enjoy it and it has social benefits for them.

I think you're being utterly ridiculous

Thank you @SweetforOrchestra the best instrument! When he started at 7 we had no idea he’d be any good at it.

@Spinet dd2 and dd1 for a while were at cym in London- which is part of guildhall but a very different beast. It never felt competitive or pushy - just hundreds of kids having a good time on their instrument. Some do become professional- but really many of them are in it to make friends and have a laugh on a Saturday. That’s what I wanted for both my girls. They had a blast !

The more I read this thread the more I wonder what dd2 is doing at specialist school- and the happier I am she’s there instead of at jd- which would have been an alternative option. Same teachers …same funding. Actually more lesson time (two hours a week on main instrument is standard). Lucky girl.

Dd2 just loves music and now- given the opportunities- she’s flying on all her instruments without really any pressure to compare herself and enjoying lots of ensembles. Maybe - having read all this- it might be because the parents really aren’t involved!

Thank god there’s no pressure for a bassoonist to be an international soloist’ - shouldn’t imagine they’d have much of a career!

I know an award winning cellist who started learning aged 12 because the council Music service provided free lessons.

That example aside, there are many reasons for learning to play musical instruments other than becoming a high level concert pianist. Love of music making and social opportunities being key among them. None of my children want to be professional musicians, but they have all had the opportunity to learn. One is STEM focussed, but is a decent cellist, can improvise beautifully on the piano and play along to people singing on the guitar (self taught). I think you need to change your mindset and focus on the joy of doing something for its own sake.

I can’t speak for the other poster but she said “often” which I read as “not always”.

The point really is that the Jds are not looking for people with grade 8 per se, but the people who impress at audition.

And in answer to @Ubertomusic - impressing at audition is necessarily subjective so it’s totally possible someone might not get a JD offer but then win a competition. People have good days and bad days too!

I have no delusions about my child becoming a soloist or a music teacher, despite his gaining a music place at a (state) school, but I want him.to be able to enjoy playing music and I do tell him it's very important to be able to get some coppers busking in the street if he's ever going through hard times, or to entertain people and make friends with the universal language of music if he's travelling far from home.

I just wanted my kids to have something they could make friends with! DD1 plays the viola and stopped at grade 6, at which she reckons she could prob get into an amateur orchestra at uni because it's not a popular instrument. She wants to be a geriatric nurse and has also been studying how music is used in care homes, going in with an incredible pianist who does this as charity work. There's an awful lot more to music than grades and competition.

I had music lessons as a child. I got to grade 6 by my teens and grade 8 at 20-24 in 3 instruments. If I hadn't started so young I may never have done it. I now attend local music meets and my son comes too. He is 5 and starting an instrument next month. He's very excited.

Music lessons brought me, someone not super academic by nature, a sense of joy and belonging. If I was never offered that opportunity I may never have found this outlet that still serves me well as an adult.

Music lessons, if the child enjoys them, are never a waste of time.

I didn't ask any questions though @SweetforOrchestra
Saying that children who turn up at auditions with early g8 are less musical is daft, but you agreed with that daft and rude comment so I merely pointed out to the fact that reality is much more complex.
I know very well music is very subjective. My friends adore Hilary Hahn, I find her dry and rather boring and it's fine to have different tastes.

No, I agreed with the comment that JD audition panels are able to assess musicality, and that someone who doesn’t have grade 8 (or is at grade 8 standard) might get a place over someone who does/is, if the panel thinks they are more musical. It all really depends on the other people auditioning and performance on the day and the personal preference of the panel too. I think you would agree?

I was responding to your comment about the competition winner who didn’t get a place at RCMJD. If you don’t want people to respond to what you say then a chat forum might not be the place for you.

@minisnowballs 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!)

Absolutely loads of my friends have ended up with careers in music despite starting their instruments at 8 or 9 and doing grade 8 in their mid teens, and not just on the rarer instruments. A violinist I was at school with (who started with group lessons at school at 8) won the top prize graduating from RCM, is in an internationally renowned string quartet and often leads Aurora Orchestra, so you can take a lot of the stuff on this thread about levels and ages etc with a hefty pinch of salt.

It sounds like your DD is thriving and Im sure will do really well in whatever she wants to do.

My DD went to music colllege and studies music at university. She is a bass guitar player and goes on tour with bands, she is 19 years old and booked for some big gigs, touring with some new up and coming artists who support the big bands! She has a bud social media following bf and regularly gets contacted for work. Women bass players are in demand, we should be encouraging kids to go for their dreams in music not dismissing them.

OP is a cellist presumably teaching string players. For the majority of them (us) what OP says is the harsh reality. It's a totally different world for bassoonists and many other instruments. But MC parents at local schools do not take their children to bassoon lessons in droves - it's mostly violin, piano, cello, guitar. 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" - so parents follow this advice and don't take their children to brass lessons either 😂 (unless they are brass band families - then we get stars like Phil Cobb).

British system is not focussed on developing soloists anyway - we have probably one of the best orchestral musicians in the world but string and piano soloists are mostly being trained in the US, Russia, South Korea, Germany/Austria. It's a very different perspective on music and personality development - what Vengerov's mother did to him would raise more than "oh but is it good for the child?", neighbours would probably call social services listening to a 4yo practising for hours and hours late at night - but that's partly how he became an international star soloist. Mozart was forced to do this too, but no one would even think about this here let alone do it - so we don't have international classical stars of this calibre these days, but we somehow love Mozart's music despite knowing his story.

But this reality has nothing to do with MC children learning a bit of music or even becoming a professional orchestral musician so I'm not sure where OP got that notion from 🙂

Frankierose - can I ask how your dd gets gigs? Does she have an agent? I know very little about how musicians get gigs and this might be my dd path too one day

@Newgirls no agent, she mainly gets contacted on her social media platforms. She has met lots of connections through her music college in London and now her uni. The more gigs and networking she does the more contacts she gets. I would highly encourage your DD, they meet people along the way on their journey! I love that she is doing what makes her happy and not some safe job.