What helped you stick with an instrument as a kid?
My kid is interested in playing piano. We've found a teacher but when she practiced today, she immediately wanted me to sing what was on the sheet while she was playing the notes. That was somewhat successful but she wasn't very happy with the result and was also surprised how difficult it was. Being an amateur musician myself I can't help but think that this part is probably way more fun and excitement than just playing notes, which she is obviously willing to do.
However, even though I play the piano myself and while I'm both self-taught and I take lessons, I have no model for how musical families do these things because we just weren't musical besides a radio in the kitchen and early forms of MTV.
How did you end up playing and instrument? What helped you stick with it? Was it just making music with family, being able to play in a band? Was it that your parents allowed you to sign up for piano lessons but only if you stuck with it for a given time?
10 replies
Learning songs I wanted to play. The difficult part of this was finding songs that were approachable as a beginner.
When I taught lessons I built on this by watering down charts to a beginner level. This was actually a fun compositional exercise: how to simplify enough that it was approachable, but not so much that there was 0 challenge, and make the main themes and melody still recognizable
Hopefully your kid isn’t into like Coltrane
Despite all that there’s still the need to develop practice rigor. No matter how fun it can be at times it’s always gonna be tedious and boring at some point. But this varies a lot based on goals of course. If your kid wants to be a “piano player” there’s not much getting around the fundamentals and drilling boring shit like hanon. But if your kid just wants to play piano just playing with some regularity will take them pretty far, as I’m sure you’re aware
Coltrane lol
from my own experience, i would say let the kid play the instrument they want, or sing while playing--don't try to limit or close things off for them.
when i was a kid in elementary school, i wanted to play saxophone. i was told no, you have to play clarinet first. so i did. then when i wanted to graduate to saxophone, i was told no, you're too good at clarinet, and we need you on clarinet. i developed such a burning irrational hatred for clarinet that i eventually lost all interest in saxophone
now i exclusively play death/black metal guitar, which i love, but everyone else hates. do i play because everyone hates it? maybe, but don't care
Boy do I wish I could play the clarinette. I love it in Jazz. I was never allowed to play any instrument at all because they always thought I would never stick with it. Well, today, I play to forget all the rest. Maybe I wouldn’t have that if I had taken up a music career.
the sound of clarinet makes me cringe, after years of having to play a thing i wasn't interested in playing. maybe some kids would grow to love the instrument they're forced to play--i grew to despise it
Completely understand!
this thread is amusing... the common thing I see on why people stop, is seemingly always outsiders getting in the way and telling someone what to do/think
I will speak from my own personal experience. I was given piano lessons as a child and was forced to play classical music, which I didn't enjoy much. Practice turned into a chore, I eventually neglected it altogether and lost all passion for playing the piano. It took me until the very last year of high school to rediscover my passion for the piano, thanks to a music project I had to do as an assignment. It then dawned upon me that I can play whatever I want as long as I enjoyed it, which I still do to this day. I even compose my own pieces now.
For how long has your child been learning the instrument? Struggling is a natural part of learning, especially at a beginner stage, and it teaches you great qualities such as commitment and discipline. However, it should never feel like a chore, but rather a challenge.
I've played guitar for 30 years. Less so the last 5 years and the reason why is your answer.
It comes down to inspiration. There is absolutely no drive toward musicianship like "oh that's awesome, I wish I could produce that sound on that thing."
Find music that inspires and challenges, and the rest will come by its own nature.
Granted there's a year or two of learning to read and play properly but truly, everyone has their own path there. All that really matters is inspiration. If I'm inspired, I'm playing.
Get a tune stuck in your head so the only way to get it out is to play it. The trick is to listen to the tune right before you fall asleep or while you are sleeping. Once that tune is rattling around in the noggin, you have no choice but to run to an instrument to release it.