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

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

#211

Post by RHSman2 »

compiler-guy wrote: post #197
CPLX wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also you have to play with other people. I'm a lifelong musician and former professional musician, and I was always in bands, both school and rock bands with friends, right from when I started playing. I think that's just crucial, I never would have stuck with it just sweating it out in the basement. You aren't a musician if you aren't playing with other people and in front of audiences.

Good to know I’m not a musician even though I play two different instruments 3-4 hours a week each. I hate playing with others and stick with jam tracks for accompaniment. I never play in front of others either. Super awkward. I do occasionally put a recording on YouTube, but the listens are never more than a dozen per year, and I don’t promote it ever. Not sure how I get the listens that I do get. Not sure what it i…

Of course you are a musician! Just because some arse tells you aren’t because of x, y and z. Everyone is a musician with voice, hands etc.

Do it cos you like it (like anything else) and that is the reason.

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

#212

Post by RHSman2 »

CPLX wrote: post #39
ehaskins wrote: post #14

I've been teaching beginning guitar lessons for about seven years. Guitar is a little different in that, outside of classical guitar, there's very little traditional pedagogy, but from experience I think these things are generally true about most instruments. 1. When you start learning you sound terrible... for a long time. It's very difficult to stay motivated when you can hear your problems. 2. It's very difficult…

Also you have to play with other people. I'm a lifelong musician and former professional musician, and I was always in bands, both school and rock bands with friends, right from when I started playing. I think that's just crucial, I never would have stuck with it just sweating it out in the basement. You aren't a musician if you aren't playing with other people and in front of audiences.

That is bullshit that you’ve told your ego. An audience of one aka the person making music/sounds is just fine.

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

#213

Post by nstart »

sornaensis wrote: post #154
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #96

My mom made me and both of my brothers take 9 years of piano lessons. Today, not one of us plays - I don't think any of us even has a keyboard in our houses. The reason for this is simply that we were never allowed to play the kind of music we liked . Which was, of course, rock. Or blues, or country. Or, really, anything with a beat. Nope; it was all classical all the time. And piano lessons were the only time we wer…

As a kid (7-8) I was forced to play acoustic guitar for several years. I didnt like any of the music (or much music at all) that I played, and ended up quitting. Later on when I discovered rock and metal music I asked my parents for an electric guitar but they refused, saying I had to play the acoustic I had first and then I could ‘progress’ to electric. I was easily discouraged then so I gave up the idea. I didnt en…

That's really rough. It's one thing if a child has a history of asking for stuff and then abandoning it. Eventually if the parent says "not until you've used the other stuff", I can understand that, even if that one more thing could have been the item that really clicked for the child.

But in this case, to be forced to play only one kind of thing and then not be allowed to try something you want seems really hard. I'm sorry you had to go through that. Thanks for sharing.

Quick story about this comment resonating (pun intended) with me: My son is quietly coming and pulling out my electric guitar from my office room these days and strumming it randomly (just open strings). I haven't said anything except to be careful after he tried to walk it sideways through a door (screams internally in pain). He's watched me practice scales and the wanted to know how to play individual notes so I showed him and left it. A few days later I heard a tiny "ding" of a single note from him for the first time. Still haven't said anything. Maybe he'll love it, maybe he won't.

Basically, I'm going to keep your comment in my mind to not fall into the future trap of denying him something he really wants to try out just because I have some other hope for him. Even now, it'd be easy to jump on my son at this point and say "ho there child, I could send you to some classes now" and then get upset if he doesn't like it. It's really easy to fall for my own bias and whatnot. I'll remind myself to avoid doing that.

If you don't mind me asking, how old were you when you asked for an electric guitar initially?

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

#214

Post by idontwantthis »

An important lesson I’ve learned in the past few years learning to drum is that I rarely improve while practicing. I practice, and practice, and then at some point I come back and I can already do the new skill.

I wish I’d understood this as a younger person. I might have learned a lot of things.

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

#215

Post by badcppdev »

MengerSponge wrote: post #148
ehaskins wrote: post #14

I've been teaching beginning guitar lessons for about seven years. Guitar is a little different in that, outside of classical guitar, there's very little traditional pedagogy, but from experience I think these things are generally true about most instruments. 1. When you start learning you sound terrible... for a long time. It's very difficult to stay motivated when you can hear your problems. 2. It's very difficult…

Long quote, but very relevant: "Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why yo…

I've seen that quote before but this time I'm laughing at the assumption in, "we have good taste".

I think he means that you get into creative work because you have an awareness of what you like and a desire to make more of it. But the use of the word "good" amuses me.

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

#216

Post by washadjeffmad »

bluGill wrote: post #107
Enginerrrd wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is deeply wrong, and it externalizes the impetus for practice. I'm good at math not because some teacher in my youth made it fun. I'm good at math because I found the pedagogy and practice of it fun in and of itself. In fact, I've almost always found every attempt to "make math fun" to invariably be devoid of any real math content. If you don't enjoy the practice and struggle and discovery, and get motiv…

Math can pay the bills, or at least is. A prerequisite for most great jobs. Most people will never make money with music, but they can enjoy playing it. As such music should be taught as fun first, and then the rest follows if and when needed.

Looking through roughly 100 of the same comment in this thread, I think the singlemindedness of the concept of "music" was a problem for many.

Theory and composition don't require performance ability. Transcription or mixing are other choices for people who have great ears and technical ability but perhaps poor biomechanics or dexterity. The playing of music by oneself is only one pillar of many in the vast field of music, and yet the way we do it is such an unappealing gauntlet of private "use it or lose it" that what child wouldn't rather be elsewhere with friends?

Put another way, I think capable, broad-minded teachers are the greatest barrier to producing capable musicians.

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

#218

Post by kzrdude »

idontwantthis wrote: post #214

An important lesson I’ve learned in the past few years learning to drum is that I rarely improve while practicing. I practice, and practice, and then at some point I come back and I can already do the new skill. I wish I’d understood this as a younger person. I might have learned a lot of things.

This is what I seem to have learned a lot about, learning piano (and starting) as an adult.

The long-term progression. Nothing happens in a practice session. But each day you might notice that there is something you can do a little bit better than before. And over months you can notice even more. It's great to see some progress, but it's really over a long time scale. This year I can do more advanced patterns in the left hand than I could last year (!) etc.

And it takes time to learn something new. I found an excruciatingly beautiful melody. I worked for two weeks to learn the song and I made it through the first line - the first six bars. That was great. Then the rest of the song followed, maybe two more weeks for the further 16 bars, and then a few more weeks for the other half of the song (mostly a repeat of the previous with some differences).

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

#219

Post by overthemoon »

What's crazy is that I did this to myself. I got a guitar for my 14th birthday, and I, for some reason, got it into my head that learning the guitar was HARD WORK and I needed to do it THE RIGHT WAY. I had an acoustic and I started with boring rote practice. Got bored and didn't pick it up again for 20 years, with an electric, and the resolution that I would only ever do fun things, and find exercises that I enjoyed. I've made more progress than ever in skill and I enjoy it 100x more. I think this isn't exactly the way I'd approach it with my kid (but then again why not?), but it was a key revelation.

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

#220

Post by criddell »

amachefe wrote: post #162
WA wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand the conclusion. Why are you glad that your parents forced you for 6 years, if this had basically nothing to do with your later-found joy for music? Couldn’t the same invitation have happened if you just tried piano for a couple months and remembered your one jazz tune?

Maybe because kids don't really know what they wanted. If he didn't play the first 6years, he won't be able to enjoy "jamming" with friends

Most kids aren’t interested in classical music and that probably shouldn’t be the default for so many teaching methods. If you want kids to play, make it fun. Teach them the music they listen to.

When my kids were taking music lessons the teacher would sometimes try to talk to me after the lesson and tell me what they did and wanted to discuss with me what to teach next and my reply was always the same - why are you having this conversation with me? It’s my kid that you have to keep engaged. I’ll keep paying for lessons as long as my kid wants to play. Discuss this with my kid.

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