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Kids and music lessons: why do many promising players quit early?

thewalrus.ca

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Re: Kids and music lessons: why do many promising players quit early?

#2
As someone who runs a music label, ans has been doing this since 1999, it's not worth it to invest heavily into music. The people that make money in the industry, aren't the people that play the instruments.

It's a long gone dream of just making music that has turned into payola, social media corruption, fake audiences, and negative things like drug abuse, lip syncing, fraud, suicide and ghost writers. Don't wish it on your kids, there are countless kid stars that succumb to this toxic industry like Britney Spears, Aaron Carter, and Michael Jackson. For the rest, there's working at guitar center and ripping off others with overpriced music equipment to grant you a health-care-less descent into oblivion as a broke ex musician.

The players that give up may well be saving their own life, if not for a ton of frustration and false hope.

Re: Kids and music lessons: why do many promising players quit early?

#4

As someone who runs a music label, ans has been doing this since 1999, it's not worth it to invest heavily into music. The people that make money in the industry, aren't the people that play the instruments. It's a long gone dream of just making music that has turned into payola, social media corruption, fake audiences, and negative things like drug abuse, lip syncing, fraud, suicide and ghost writers. Don't wish it…

Agree. Avicii was also a rather high-profile case:

"When he stopped touring, he wanted to find a balance in life to be able to be happy and to do what he loved most – music. He really struggled with thoughts about Meaning, Life, Happiness. He could now not go on any longer. He wanted to find peace. Tim was not made for the business machine he found himself in"

"His manager, Arash Pournouri, admitted that he knew of Bergling's anxieties but refused to label them a problem of mental health"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avicii#Death

Re: Kids and music lessons: why do many promising players quit early?

#5
For me, it was the content. I stopped playing piano at 14, because my teacher really wanted me to play classical. Not a fan.

I came back to piano later by myself when I wanted to play video game music. Then I wanted to play stuff from movies, pop songs, etc. I started watching interesting videos on reharmonization and tried that on some pop hits to interesting effect. I wouldn’t say I “stopped” completely, but my relationship with the instrument is completely different than it was when I was taking full time lessons growing up. I’m at the point where I might take it up again, but I would have specific goals in mind now.

Re: Kids and music lessons: why do many promising players quit early?

#7

As someone who runs a music label, ans has been doing this since 1999, it's not worth it to invest heavily into music. The people that make money in the industry, aren't the people that play the instruments. It's a long gone dream of just making music that has turned into payola, social media corruption, fake audiences, and negative things like drug abuse, lip syncing, fraud, suicide and ghost writers. Don't wish it…

It depends on what genre you're going in to as well. Classical and jazz musicians usually have a very different experience than what you describe.

Although there's one thing in common among them all -- it's difficult to make good money.

Re: Kids and music lessons: why do many promising players quit early?

#8
"Some teachers find it’s their job to make students get better," Pappas says. "But what a teacher really needs to do is give their students the tools to make themselves better."

In my opinion, both approaches are wrong. The job of a good teacher is to make learning fun. Once you enjoy practicing, skill follows automatically.

Re: Kids and music lessons: why do many promising players quit early?

#9

As someone who runs a music label, ans has been doing this since 1999, it's not worth it to invest heavily into music. The people that make money in the industry, aren't the people that play the instruments. It's a long gone dream of just making music that has turned into payola, social media corruption, fake audiences, and negative things like drug abuse, lip syncing, fraud, suicide and ghost writers. Don't wish it…

You don't have to be a career rockstar to get personal satisfaction and enjoyment from playing instruments for yourself or with friends. When people quit as a child its really sad, because they deny themselves an opportunity for a lifelong hobby. Picking up the guitar again after I quit as a kid was the best thing I could do, but I still kick myself for not sticking through it all the years and all the potential experience I wasted playing tf2 instead.

Re: Kids and music lessons: why do many promising players quit early?

#10
post #5

For me, it was the content. I stopped playing piano at 14, because my teacher really wanted me to play classical. Not a fan. I came back to piano later by myself when I wanted to play video game music. Then I wanted to play stuff from movies, pop songs, etc. I started watching interesting videos on reharmonization and tried that on some pop hits to interesting effect. I wouldn’t say I “stopped” completely, but my rel…

this was exactly what brought me back after i left as a kid

i've had an opportunity once to recommend this to a mother who asked me what kept me interested, as her kid was losing interest. i told her to get some scores for the games they were playing

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