Parents need to think carefully before embarking on piano lessons for their children: what do you really want?
Do you want to make a professional musician out of your child? If you do, you’re on the edge of child abuse, in my opinion, for the world of music today is a brutal business in which young lives are chewed up and spit out for the benefit of a very few corporations.
No one wins, except the few music producers who churn out the violent garbage that the masses will buy. That is simply the truth, and has been for many years.
There is, in essence, no more “Carnegie Hall” to which you may lead your child. There is no classical record business, and classical artists do not have careers any more: they live from one month to the next, except for a very, very few superstars.
These classical superstars are in a selfish class by themselves, returning tokens to the community while taking as much money as they can in their brief careers.
When was the last time an opera star or piano virtuoso came to your kid’s school? In the old days, they did.
So having your child be a musician can’t be your goal. No one in his right mind wishes the life of a professional musician on a child.
Try to see deeper into the future, envisioning your child ten or twenty years from now.
Your child will be a young adult, and your goal should be to have your child, someday, be able to sit down and play music which pleases them, and which they enjoy playing. That’s it. That’s the goal, and it is hard enough to realize.
Playing music can’t be a struggle, or work, it has to be play. Yes, there will be hard work to be done, but if the child is made to hate it they will never take up the instrument themselves some day in the future.
But much of conventional piano lessons work against that goal.
For example, if lessons make your child hate the piano, the likelihood is that they will never go to a piano again. Those are the facts.
What you must do is set a lower goal, and if your child exceeds it, so much the better. If they are only comfortable with a lower level of skill, and are not made to feel guilty about it, there is still the chance they will take up the piano in earnest when they are a young adult and can appreciate their goal, and wholeheartedly try to achieve it.
Thus, the real goal of childhood piano lessons is to NOT make the child hate piano.
In other words, if your child emerges from years of lessons with no other skill than NOT hating the piano, they are still likely to try again on their own later.
What almost all piano teachers do is to hold children to an unattainable goal, frustrate them, and ultimately convince the child that the piano is not for them, when in fact the piano could easily be an enjoyable pursuit for many.
Think about it. If a child sits in a room for a half hour a week, being made to feel foolish and clumsy, do you honestly think they will opt for more of it?
Children naturally shrink from failure. Failure is an emotional scar that children have to live with, whether they’re aware of it or not. Don’t expect them to ask for more of it.
So think ahead. Imagine your child at eighteen or twenty-five, or forty. Will they pick up the piano again? Will they try?
The answer lies in the lessons they are taking right now. If those childhood lessons teach them that they can enjoy piano in their own way, at their own pace, you have a chance.
If those lessons are convincing them that the piano is impossible for them, they will never be convinced otherwise.
I have seen countless kids turn this corner, and take up the piano again after early childhood failure. Often, I am the teacher selected to start the process again.
There are a thousand reasons for failure at the piano besides practically insurmountable obstacles such as lack of talent. Dyslexia, ADHD, personality, parents, school. All of these affect the outcome of the initial set of lessons.
Childhood piano lessons are not the goal, they are the seed, and you need to patiently water the garden for future harvest.
By John Aschenbrenner Copyright 2000 Walden Pond Press.
See also THE PIANO WHISPERER
See also DON'T CALL IT PRACTICE, CALL IT PLAY
See also MY CHILD WANTS TO QUIT PIANO
See also WHY KIDS NEED FREEDOM TO LEARN PIANO
See also COMPARING CONCERT PIANISTS AND BEGINNING CHILD PIANISTS
See also PSYCHOLOGY OF HOMESCHOOL PIANO
