SHOULD
PARENTS FORCE CHILDREN TO TAKE PIANO LESSONS?
If
the teacher was a brilliant Svengali who could get any kid to
play and enjoy it, the answer is yes.
If
the teacher is the average type, going from one page to the next
in the old or new texts, then the answer is definitely no.
The
former is very hard to find.
The
latter is what almost every piano teacher is.
Given
the industry statistics, your child has a 1 in 10 chance of
playing the piano and enjoying the experience if they start with
the dogmatists and disciplinarians.
Those
are very bad odds, especially if you pay $20 to $80 a week for
the privilege of watching your child turn their back on the
piano.
Step
back for a moment and ask yourself what you really want from
your child and the piano.
-
If you think a
musical career is a good idea, think again. Music is a
cruel, brutal business nowadays. If you enter it, you have a
99% chance of failure. The other 1% starve.
-
If you simply
want your child to be able to play and enjoy it, then you
have selected a reasonable goal.
Now,
select the teacher that will make this possible. You probably
want the teacher with the highest credentials, right? You think
that assures you of a quality musical education for your child.
But
the best conventional piano teacher will only try to inculcate
your child with the ABC's of the piano, because that's how
they were taught, and they cannot conceive of any other way. The
ABC's are fine, but the ABC's of the piano are infinitely
more complex and physical as well.
In
other words, send your child to a conventional piano teacher and
they'll treat your child as if they were headed to Carnegie
Hall. This dogmatism will turn off any normal child who is not
remarkably gifted at the piano in the first place.
And
if your child cannot understand this outdated curriculum, it's
the child's fault. "He doesn't practice. He doesn't
listen. Why, it's almost like he doesn't want to
learn the piano!" Ignorance with these teachers reigns
supreme, and you are paying for it.
Thus,
with your reasonable goal in mind, set out to find a teacher who
matches your child's needs. If your child is talented and
already accomplished, by all means seek out the highest
conventional qualifications.
But,
if your child is a normal six year old in America in 2009, think
again. These kids have tremendous creativity, but the teacher
must be clever enough to find ways to have the child adopt the
curriculum as their own. If you force it, or use a curriculum
that bores them, it will be over very quickly.
You
might seek out someone who strikes you as having the following
qualities, in addition to their musical resume:
-
Game show host:
don't underestimate the importance of fun.
-
Patient.
Biblically patient.
-
Child
psychologist: Find a way to run the lessons without being
oppressive. It's after school and it's an elective.
Lighten up.
To
answer your question finally:
If
you force a child to play the piano, you will never get them to
enjoy it. Even if they have potential talent and interest, the
wrong first teacher can destroy that interest in a matter of
days.
By John
Aschenbrenner Copyright 2008 Walden Pond Press All Rights Reserved
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