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

Then one day, my cousin bought me a discography CD pack of Rush CDs. I heard Fly By Night and I knew I HAD to learn to play it. That resulted in about a five year streak of obsessive Rush disorder. I was again, hooked. Now on more advanced music. I wanted to learn all the songs. I even formed a little tribute band with a few other people.

Now, I have a classical guitar sitting next to the couch and I sometimes come and sit and just noodle around. Just enjoy the sounds, the feel of the strings against my fingers, the satisfaction of discovering an assembly of notes to play that sound special.

It's been about 15 years now. Not once did I think I needed to learn something on the guitar because somebody told me I had to. I always learned something in pursuit of learning the next song.

As a result of this, the child will end up having a hatred towards the musical form and will never even try to give 100%, and without trying no-one can know that they have talent.

A solution to this would be to make it only optional - but then again there'd be the lazy talented ones who don't want to try anything

I started classical music lessons very early as a kid. I was one of those weird kids that ended up liking classical music anyways, but I also had a deep love for movie soundtracks. My parents encouraged me to play anything I liked. Which I did -- movie soundtracks. They'd go around bragging to other parents how their little kid learned these soundtracks by ear too.

I still play to this day, and have branched out into many different genres. Them being supportive for the idea that this is an expression of myself, and praising my efforts, really cemented playing musical instruments as a core part of my identity.

Not a parent yet, but I hope I can pass along this chain of positivity to my own in the future.

How many young kids actually, genuinely want to play a violin/flute/clarinet? I'd wager very, very few. I don't think it is the teaching method at fault here, it's just that probably very few kids want to play an instrument.

Of course kids will quit boring/tedious stuff when they are not forced/compelled to continue. You can't just opt out of learning maths (at least in the UK you can't anyway), but music "lessons" are obviously optional (in the UK there is/was music classes that taught theory, reading music notation etc to the entire class, but not how to play a specific instrument).

My kids are still too young, but when it happens I am strongly going to lobby for them learning an instrument that at least has the possibility of them seeming cool to their peers (so e.g. guitar or drums or whatever) and so something they are more likely to want to continue, rather than forcing Mozart + oboe on a 14 year old or whatever.