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Here’s a bonding idea for you: learn to play a musical
instrument along with your child.
I’m not saying it’s a good idea, but it might
work in your house. In our case, I put off beginning piano lessons until my daughter turned five,
now a year ago. Apparently, five is the age when kids should start piano, unless they have exhibited
Mozart-like tendencies to play Schubert by ear on the local baby grand. In a recent unofficial poll,
47% of people who play musical instruments started playing between the ages of four and ten. The BBC
site has a good guide on ages to start playing different instruments based on the size of the
instrument, and the lung or body strength required, in brief:
Ideally, in all of these cases, the child should be able to recognize numbers
and know letters through G, for obvious reasons.
I found a teacher who bought into my
idea of learning along with my daughter, or who at least humored me in my plan. At our first lesson,
she met my daughter and me, let us plunk around on the keys, and ordered us beginner books. I did
not get the one with zoo animals playing in a band, I got the more austere-looking Adult
Piano Adventures. (Note: I’d recommend this book for beginners or older students getting back to
the piano. It’s not a ‘piano for dummies’ style primer, but it does teach the basics with
arrangements of the type of classical and pop songs you’ll likely recognize and enjoy
playing).
On our second lesson, it was clear there was something wrong with my plan.
My daughter banished me to the waiting area and conducted her part of the lesson in private. I was
allowed five minutes at the end to show what I learned. This continued on for weeks on end, until we
finally broke up our “lesson.” I went on to take 45-minute bi-weekly lessons and she changed
teachers for a more convenient, and private, at-school lesson. Which leads me to several things I
found out about kids and learning music:
Good
luck!
Paul Banas
Editor/Founder