Music Part 3 - Practice makes perfect

People often ask me how my children learned to play the piano so well.  They are surprised that they had no formal training.  As I said in my last post, starting around age ten to begin lessons and practicing consistently will go a long way towards achieving proficiency.

But what if your child doesn't want to practice?  You first need to ask yourself if your child really wants to learn or is he just doing it because he has to.  Is he ready to make the commitment to practice?  Is his schedule too full with other things?  Does he need a little motivation?  (incentives, bribes etc.)  When one of my children was 12 or 13, she decided she didn't want to practice any more.  I told her that it was ok, that maybe she wasn't ready to commit to such an undertaking and I would give her a year off.  Well, after about a week, she came back to me and said she was ready to commit to practicing because she missed the piano.  Having her come to that conclusion on her own was a lot easier than me having to threaten or demand and make it a power struggle. 

Practicing the piano was just part of the day for my kids.  I think the most we had using the piano was six children and that took some scheduling to fit them all in.  Maybe they realized that if they missed their time to practice, there wasn't another time the rest of the day.  Whatever the reason, they all practiced regularly and it wasn't long before the music itself was the reward for their effort.

Music Part 2 - Piano lessons

When I was about seven years old, my parents signed me up for piano lessons.  I was so excited!  I could picture myself sitting down at the old, black upright playing beautiful music!  Imagine my surprise and dismay when I learned that all my teacher wanted me to do was repeat little two finger exercises that didn't sound like music at all.  The third day of lessons, I locked myself in the bathroom and refused to come out and take my lesson.  That was the last I saw of my piano teacher and the last lesson I took.

I had that memory with me as my husband and I were deciding how to go about providing music lessons for our kids.  We both felt that music lessons were an important part of our children's education and wanted to make it a good experience for them.  Our income was tight and we couldn't afford lessons from a teacher so we searched around for a self-taught program that would meet our needs.  My biggest requirement for a program was that I wanted them to be able to play real, recognizable music from the beginning.  We found one that met that requirement, a five book series entitled The Complete Piano Player by Kenneth Baker.  With our oldest daughter as guinea pig, we embarked on our newest adventure.

I had read that learning to play an instrument was easier if you waited until the child is about ten years old.  I know, everyone else starts when their kids are about five or six.  The theory is that children's bodies mature and develop unevenly and it isn't until they are about ten that their brains and eye-hand coordination work well together.  Our daughter was 12 so we started with her and her 10 year old brother.  They thrived on the material in the books and quickly mastered the beginning songs.  Each week, we would have a little "concert" where they could perform their music and their dad would pass it off so they could move on to the next pieces.   The key to success was regular, consistent practice.  For the first two books, that meant 1/2 hour a day, every day.  After that it was one hour a day, every day.  Years later, someone told my daughter that she wished she could play as well.  My daughter's response was that she could...if she put in as much time practicing.

Now it's been many years since we bought those first books.  The kids "graduated" from the beginning series, moved on to an intermediate series and then advanced.  All eight of them are excellent piano players who are in great demand as accompanists and solo performers.  Not bad...

Music Part 1

Recently, one of my daughters asked to borrow my iPod while she went to the gym.  When she gave it back later, she said, "Mom, your taste in music is schizophrenic!"  Ok, so my iPod has current pop, Disney tunes, classical instrumental, novelty songs, oldies, religious music, Glee...  I love music!

Music can have a power effect in your home.   It can cause excitement, encourage sleep, bring peaceful feelings or make you laugh.  It can be used to teach and inspire.  Don't limit yourself or your family to just one type of music.  Experiment with different styles.  Sing lullabies to your babies and little ones.  Introduce teenagers to classical music (subtly, of course!).  Vary the CD's you listen to in your car.  Attend concerts and musical productions as a family.   You could even sing together.  I know, that's stretching it a bit  :) 

It's probably easier to introduce different styles of music when your children are young and not so influenced by peer pressure.  My children especially liked the Classical Kids CD's, a series of CD's  where a story is woven around a particular composer (Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Handel, and others) and his most famous works.  The stories are very engaging and entertaining, not boring or dry.  My kids listened to them frequently and I didn't realize how much they were actually learning about classical music until one day my three year old daughter walked into the living room, stopped and listened for a second, and said, "Sounds like Mozart but it's Vivaldi."  She was right.  The music playing on the CD was Vivaldi.