Kids and music lessons: why do many promising players quit early? • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by nerdponx » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 3:02 PM UTC

mattlondon wrote: post #139

Don't you think most kids would also choose to quit maths or history or any other boring subject at school too? This article skirts around the fact that I think is the reason kids quit 90+% of the time: the kids just don't want to do it but their parents are forcing them. 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…

1. People don't usually start "math" until much, much later in life compared to music, except a small number of students who gravitate towards it on their own. They're already at a different point in their life with respect to their understanding of practice and hard work.

2. Some people do give up on technical subjects and other practice-intensive pursuits at a young age, for various reasons, all similar to music.

3. Young people are goaded into trying music much more frequently than other pursuits, and parents tend to be more persistent about it.

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

#232

Post by midenginedcoupe » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 3:09 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #19

winternett wrote: post #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…

Are session musicians still a thing? I would guess that the way music is recorded and produced now, session musicians are much less in demand, but I really don't know. Just seems that the ability to sit down and sight read a part and play it perfectly through in one or two takes is not really needed anymore, when songs are pieced together almost note by note in a computer/DAW. "Before Pro Tools, there were pros"

Yes they are absolutely still a thing.

Albeit the amount of work available has been in decline for decades and it's now a fraction of what it used to be, but there's still enough work to keep a core of the very best working almost full time in the remaining major recording studios (here in London at least).

I think you'd be surprised at how much music is still produced by composing, arranging for and recording real musicians. But London is still one of the best places on the planet to get that kind of work done so it's an admittedly skewed experience.

Oh, and there's more than just session musicians who need to sight read perfectly first time - that's just table-stakes for professional commercial musicians in my experience (source: am professional-level jazz trombonist).

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

#233

Post by balfirevic » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 3:09 PM UTC

ctchocula wrote: post #201

thatjoeoverthr wrote: post #167

I would love any input. My five year old daughter asked for a guitar on Christmas. I took her to the music store and let her pick a ukelele. She loves to play at it hard and sing, and doesn’t “get” that she’s just strumming blindly and making noise. it’s adorable but I wonder if there is something I can do to nudge her. At the moment I’m thinking to 1) act impressed when she plays 2) get my own and let her see how I…

Get your own ukulele, learn to play and inspire her to learn and get better! Ukuleles are great for jamming, so your second ukulele won't be a waste. Learning to sing and strum chords at the same time was a transformative experience for me and incredible bang-for-buck compared to learning piano, because that immediately unlocks being able to perform most pop songs with chords. Someone above posted a great collection…

> Learning to sing and strum chords at the same time was a transformative experience for me and incredible bang-for-buck compared to learning piano, because that immediately unlocks being able to perform most pop songs with chords.

You can do the same on the piano, with comparable effort to the guitar! Some songs are more amenable to piano accompaniment than others - ballads work great.

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

#234

Post by GlenTheMachine » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 3:21 PM UTC

erfgh wrote: post #158

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…

Sorry to be an ass but it doesn't sound to me like you had any talent in music.

I don't know whether I did or not. I hated the process so much that I never had enough incentive to find out.

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

#235

Post by mattlondon » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 3:29 PM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #231

mattlondon wrote: post #139

Don't you think most kids would also choose to quit maths or history or any other boring subject at school too? This article skirts around the fact that I think is the reason kids quit 90+% of the time: the kids just don't want to do it but their parents are forcing them. 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…

1. People don't usually start "math" until much, much later in life compared to music, except a small number of students who gravitate towards it on their own. They're already at a different point in their life with respect to their understanding of practice and hard work. 2. Some people do give up on technical subjects and other practice-intensive pursuits at a young age, for various reasons, all similar to music. 3…

At least in the UK, you cannot give up technical subjects at school until a certain age.

This is because they know if you gave kids the choice to give up maths or whatever and do something fun instead then they would :)

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

#236

Post by ajmurmann » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 3:56 PM UTC

shhdhsheh wrote: post #198

ajmurmann wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do it! I started learning cello during the pandemic despite not playing any other instrument. While I'm probably still worse than children with the same time of practice, it's been fun and really rewarding. I assume it's even more rewarding with a simpler instrument.

Unfortunately I haven't found a way yet to start and stick at it. The guitar is in the basement.

Lessons with an online teacher have helped me stay on the ball. I'm sometimes frustrated that we aren't in the same room together but the convenience is great. Lessons also can feel a little bit like being back in school, bit initially some stuff comes down to just investing the time and the teacher had helped me avoid bad habits. The latter might be more of a risk with a cello than a guitar though.

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

#237

Post by Hesinde » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 4:01 PM UTC

pclmulqdq wrote: post #118

JKCalhoun wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree: TABS == good, sheet music == bad. (For beginners, anyway.)

A lot of people fluent in sheet music don't appreciate how incomprehensible and information-dense it really is. If you just want to play a song, it's the wrong way to go.

I have come to like sheet music - in part, because of its density.

Most voices, which we play in our music club fit on 1 to 4 sheets. This is the amount of sheets, which can be conveniently put on our music stands. Any more means page turning during a piece or multiple music stands.

A less dense format would mean that it does not find on four sheets on a music stand anymore. We would have to swap out paper binders for an electronic solution. This on one hand is expensive and on the otherhand bothersome. Paper with all its limitations just works. Electronic devices need to be charged, kept up to date, break easily, etc. Doing something offline lets me relax and focus easier.

That said I think tablets will become an increasingly better alternative for paper based sheet music. I don't like the glowing comparatively small displays though. Looking forward to big e-ink tablets running a general purpose OS.

A club member's setup is cool. He has an area dedicated to music in his house. Inbetween a dozen hardware synthesizers there is a master keyboard and behind it a big screen, which can be (at least in theory) used for configuring the synthesizers and display sheet music. This setup is expensive and stationary though and thus not a good fit for performing or playing music in a club.

I did not like sheet music in the beginning, but honestly I cannot think of a strictly better format to teach people how to perform a piece of music. I think a piano roll projected via AR technology would be a good contendor, but the technology is not there yet.

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

#238

Post by a_c » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 4:11 PM UTC

Children need to learn to be gritty if they are not born with it.

Overly generalizing here. All things in life is either instantly gratifying but in long term harmful or initially grinding but in long term joyful. How are children supposed to know something will be fun 10 years, 20 years down the road? They either pick up from parent/peers/school or us parent imposed our version of "later it will be cool" on them.

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

#239

Post by _glass » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 4:18 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #227

_glass wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the equation changed recently. Many more gigs, because so less people are playing an instrument to a certain level nowadays. Here in Hamburg Germany (with a population of 1.8m) there are maybe like two good pianists. It's actually relatively easy to earn money with music through concerts nowadays.

I don't know what the situation is like in Germany, but here in the US there are far more people who are good at music than there are jobs. There are a lot more than 2 great Pianists in Des Moines (population 700k). I'm pretty sure just out local universities' piano professors account for more than two, plus their students are presumably great in their own right (I have not checked to see what they have) I have to be…

Okay, there are some great pianists. But not many that can organize a show. It was a bit tongue in cheek, but so many are feeling entitled and have no business skills.

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

#240

Post by mikrl » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 4:43 PM UTC

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…

I get this. Never had any desire to learn an instrument because I didn’t see the point. The lures of impressing women or busking for beer money were never strong enough.

Now that I have a copy of ableton I love playing around with wave synths, learning music theory, samplers, automation, the bitcrusher, etc and don’t even have to consciously set aside time to do so, I just do it as easily as opening a video game.