Have you considered music lessons for your child? Is she interested in taking lessons? Is it something that you want for him?
In this blog post I’m going to be talking about music lessons and the opportunities that music lessons provide. My experience comes from taking piano as a child myself from age four through freshman year of college, as a Mom of four kids who have all taken piano lessons, and as a piano teacher. I’ve been teaching piano lessons on the side for about five years. This blog post is about the weekly one-on-one lessons that the child may take with a teacher where there are recitals once or twice a year. I think the opportunities for a child to grow when they take music lessons are spectacular! Of course, I’m biased as a piano teacher, but three specific opportunities come to mind among many others.
The most basic opportunity is the ability to play and enjoy music. For some kids who take piano, they really like the performance aspect of it and being able to play a song for somebody. And then for other kids, music can be a way to relax. I know one of my piano students whose parents mentioned to me that their daughter comes home from a very rigorous school and goes immediately to the piano. It is her way to decompress. Honestly, that is what piano is for me personally. If I’m feeling stressed out, I love to go play the piano.
Another opportunity that music lessons provide is the ability to draw the line for our kids between hard work and success. Music lessons are weekly. A child may be learning a new song and then playing it for a teacher the next week. It is a quick turn around between taking the time to practice thus putting in the hard work, and then being able to play the song or part of a song successfully. I love that clear connection between hard work and success!
Another opportunity that I love about music lessons is being able to look back at a particular song that was challenging to learn so that next time your child comes up against something difficult, you can look back and say to your child, “Remember how you thought you would never learn that Minuet? And you did!” And so maybe your child is facing long division and is in tears and frustration, but you can offer hope. The ability to look back to a particular song and say, “You didn’t think you would get that either, and you did. And the same thing is probably going to be true with this math. It feels rough now, but you are going to get it. Don’t give up!”
I often get asked, when is a good age to start music lessons? I think if I had to give a short answer, I would say age 7. This was confirmed to me when I was talking to another mom. We live in Nashville, so there’s lots of music here. This lady is a concert pianist and has been on tour with musicians. And she said the same thing. Age seven is usually first or second grade, and kids at that age are excited about new things. They have a little bit more time in their schedule than middle schoolers who are busier with homework and possibly sports and other extracurricular activities. I don’t think that age seven is set in stone because you really have to know your child and see how much interest he or she has. If your child has no interest in taking musical lessons, it may be a difficult road for you to try to get her to practice, and it may become a burden for both of you.
Here are some other thoughts from my experience. If you join a sports team and you’re playing at a recreational level, there’s usually one practice and one game per week. The practice may be an hour long. So with piano lessons you are taking an hour, and you’re breaking it up. For my beginners, I tell them that practice will take probably about 10 minutes a day five to six times a week. That increases as they take lessons for a longer amount of time. But that’s a good expectation to have in mind if your child takes music lessons–it’s less at one time but more times throughout the week.
Another thing to consider is where you want to take lessons. Do you want to go to someone’s house or studio or do you want to pay for a music teacher to come to your house? The teachers that come to your house usually cost a little bit more because of the convenience.
You can also think outside of the box. In our area of the country, our elementary school starts pretty late. So I actually teach four elementary and middle school boys two mornings a week before school. And let me tell you, for boys that has been fabulous! They’re up early anyway. Their attention is great. It does not interfere with sports practices. That has been a really good thing for us to do piano lessons in the morning. And it is super gracious of my family because the piano is being played at 7:00 or 7:15 am.
It’s always great to have an open relationship with the teacher. I have appreciated the Moms who have said to me, “Hey, my son is feeling really overwhelmed or my son would like to be challenged more.” Some kids’ personalities like to focus on one song at the time at a time and other kids like to juggle a lesson song and a pop song.
I have another thought as someone who lives in Nashville. That is, for the people who write music it is their job, and they do deserve to get paid. If you want to get a song, I encourage you to purchase it. Sheet music is very reasonable, and you can easily get online and buy easier versions of songs that your child may be interested in playing.
Christmas songs are huge for the fun of being able to play a well-known song. I always capitalize on that! I let my piano students pick Christmas songs that they want to learn how to play.
Another thought about music lesson is that it takes 9 to 12 months to “ramp up”. If you decide to do music lessons, I encourage you to give it a full year before considering stopping the music lessons. In our family I told my girls that they had to take piano lessons for two years, and then they could decide to continue or not. Two of my girls having been taking piano for many years. Another child now takes guitar and piano lessons. My youngest did her two years, and she was out. But I don’t regret giving her the opportunity.
If you have read about me, I have an elementary education degree. With that knowledge, I have noticed that if a child is struggling in reading, it is a hard thing to start music lessons at the same time. I may encourage you to wait a little bit because music is another language. Kindergarten has become so academic. There’s so much information floating around in a kindergartner’s brain who is learning how to read, so adding on reading music in kindergarten (unless they have a passion for it or are begging to take lessons) may be a lot. I think it may be easier to wait a bit. Then that is why I say age 7 is a great age to start music lessons.
I’ll end with this. And that is that there’s going to be ups and downs when taking music lessons. Transitions in life are a thing. There is a transition from becoming a beginner to an intermediate and an intermediate to an advanced musician. Sometimes in those transitions, you do feel the bumps in the road.
I have this memory when I was in fourth grade of throwing my piano book across our living room and yelling “I hate piano! I don’t wanna do it anymore!” And I’m so thankful that my mom did not let me quit when I wanted to quit in that moment. And so, if your child comes to a transition when taking music lessons, consider this question. I ask myself this question about many things related to parenting, and it can be applied in this case.
Is this the exception or the rule?
If your child is generally enjoying music and they go through a season–maybe a couple weeks where they’re really not liking it–it may just be a song that they don’t like or maybe something else is capturing their attention. That would be the exception. But if it’s a rule…if it’s generally a huge struggle, then it may not be a good fit.
I hope these thoughts and comments are helpful for you if you’re considering music lessons. And you know what? Music lessons are not for everybody. And I totally realize that. But as I mentioned earlier, I think there are some beautiful things that can come out of taking music lessons.
