I consider myself very lucky to have grown up in a musical household. Not only were both my parents musicians, they were teachers as well. This ended up being a very positive environment for me. What about households where a parent might not know much about music at all? Is it detrimental to their child’s musical development? Should they learn to play the instrument with their children? These questions are what we are going to be covering today.
Learning to play along with your kids can be very beneficial to both you and your child. Especially if you are having a child learn to play an instrument at a young age it’s a very good idea to learn to play along with them. Being able to guide and help them in their lessons will greatly improve their learning – especially when it comes to reading notes and learning rhythms.
Not only does learning an instrument with your child potentially improve the technical aspects of their development, it also allows your kids to be more engaged in the musical process. By seeing you learn an instrument along with them they will see you engaging in a similar activity and they will naturally want to emulate you. It’s a great bonding experience and will greatly enhance their enthusiasm to keep learning.
It’s certainly not the end of the world if you want your children to learn to play a musical instrument and you can’t play one yourself. I have seen this countless times and I’ve seen many great students come out of these types of circumstances. However, if you are not going to be directly involved in the learning process you need to make sure that you are providing a good environment for them to learn. This means getting the best teacher you can afford as well as motivating them (not forcing them) to learn and keep up their enthusiasm. If you take an interest in what they are doing and provide encouragement it will help them immensely.
Either way, you should provide a positive environment for them to learn their instrument and develop as a musician. Just paying for lessons and not taking an interest will eventually lead to disaster.
Thanks for joining me Robert Estrin Robert@Livingpianos.com (949) 244-3729