Piano

Young member of the Larsson household does her piano practice while papa paints her, Carl Larsson

During the past few months my school has held rehearsals for a musical play in the music studio afterschool, pushing the piano teacher to my classroom to borrow my old spinet for her lessons. It has been an eye opener for me to eavesdrop on these first and second graders at their first piano lessons while I work in my classroom.  I've been hearing a lot of Beethoven's Ode to Joy done with 5 fingers, lots of C Major scales in 1 octave, and lots of "I promise I'll practice more next week". 

As a child, I loved taking piano lessons for about the first two years then I remember, not hating them, but not caring enough to practice either. Then there would be the stressful 5 minute drive to the piano teacher's house with a horribly guilty stomachache and my own fruitless promises to practice more. A year or so later the piano teacher moved away and my siblings and I wore my mom down with whining for no more piano.

Somewhere along the way as I got older I started to love to play the piano on my own. It was fun and relaxing. I loved to choose my own music. A lot of times that music was this:

Or this:

finished off with some of this:

By the time I was a teenager I was regretting ever giving up formal lessons because I had no knowledge of theory or ability to play more difficult pieces. Ever since then I have taken lessons here and there for a year or so at a time, always tapering off when life gets too busy. Which brings me to this:

Should you force your child to practice? I'm kind of inclined to say yes within certain boundaries. I've read a lot of advice on kids and piano (Munchkins & Music, Parents Magazine, and the Piano World message boards to name a few) and I'm leaning more towards the compulsory side. Obviously this would be taking into account an individual child's temperament and abilities but a lot of early music instruction really is boring, it is repetitive & tedious, it's the drudge work that isn't very fun. You can't play songs that sound like very much and nearly everyone would rather be outside playing.

Honestly, that's not so different than parts of learning to read or to do math... but hopefully your parents and teachers don't let you quit because it isn't fun 100% of the time. I think for me I would approach piano as another academic subject with certain expectations. I wouldn't want my kids to hate it (or to hate me!) but at the same time I've known people who were forced until a certain age (usually about 12 or 13) and by that point they didn't want to quit and it became their own choice. Part of the reason they kept with it is that after 6 or 7 years of lessons and diligent practice they could play interesting pieces that they truly enjoyed. And by "forced" I don't mean chained to the piano legs.

And of course there are ways to try to make practicing fun. I really liked the idea of a Family Concert Night with all family member performing what they had been working on throughout the week. Somewhere else I read about having your child record themselves playing to have a tangible way for them to hear the improvement. Practicing a certain element of a piece instead of practicing for a set amount of time seems like another good idea.

The big one for me is having kids realize that music isn't just about advancing to the next level or playing a more difficult piece. Playing the piano has brought me relaxation, peace, & enjoyment but it is also something that I use in my career (it definitely gave me an edge when I interviewed for teaching positions) and in my church life (as much as I get nervous it does feel good to be able to step in at the last moment to play the accompaniment for the hymns in church meetings).

But then I read this article and blog post and I have a whole new set of issues to stew about. That will have to be for another day because I am off to enjoy school teacher freedom (aka spring break!).