Should parents force their kids to play piano?
Every parent dreams of her child learning to play a musical instrument. But what if the kid doesn't want to play? Then what?
Shutterstock/Dmitry Naumov
Some parents like to start their kids young.
The day the '89 earthquake shook the Bay Area, toppling buildings and pushing homes down hillsides, I was secretly elated. The tremblor got me out of going to my piano lesson.
I was preparing for my lesson and practicing "The Blue Danube," the classic Strauss waltz, at my childhood home in the South Bay at the time. And as usual, I hadn't practiced enough that week and dreaded going to my lesson. I assumed from the mini tidal wave that rose out of our swimming pool and swept through our open kitchen door that my lesson might be canceled. And then we heard the reports of the Cypress structure and a section of the Bay Bridge collapsing...piano was officially off. (The tragedy of the disaster was lost on me as a teenager.)
It was my mother's dream to have me learn to play the piano. Even though neither she nor my father had any musical talent, she sold all the stock gifted to her by my grandfather to purchase a piano.
One weekend morning, she dressed me in a pink dress and black patent leather shoes and we drove an hour north to the Sherman Clay shop in San Francisco. A few weeks later a moving truck delivered a beautiful mahogany-colored upright...and immediately the pressure to learn to play was on.
My mom signed me up for a group class taking place once a week after school. I went to the first lesson--and hated it. My fingers moved awkwardly, and my ears didn't hear the notes.
The next week, I skipped class by hiding in the bushes on the schoolyard.
My mom got a call from the teacher that night--and that's when she signed me up for private lessons and drove me herself.
The real low point occurred at a piano recital. I was in the program playing "The Blue Danube," but when my teacher called my name and I walked to the front, my mind went blank. I rested my fingers on the keys, burst into tears, and then ran out of the room.
After all of this, you might think that I wouldn't allow my children to go near a piano. The exact opposite.
After my daughter was born, I acquired a beautiful 130-year-old piano from an antique store going out of business. I hired a tuner to do some work on it and he ended up replacing nearly every part inside. We ended up with an instrument that produces a glorious, rich, warm sound.
Over a year ago my daughter started taking lessons. While I detested going to lessons as a child, I'm now happy that my mother made me go because I read music, appreciate the great composers, and can still plunk out the "Blue Danube." I want my daughter to have that, and hopefully more.
I'm making sure my daughter's experience is different. My mom never made me practice--and so I really didn't. I went to lessons unprepared and got scolded by my teacher.
I make sure that my daughter practices. We sit down at the piano together several nights a week and play together. She enjoys going to lessons to show her teacher what she's learned.
But of course, there are times when she doesn't want to play and she has told me a few times that she wants to discontinue lessons. This is when I pause and question what I'm doing. How could I do to her what my own mother did to me?
I recently had a discussion with a teacher, who we'll call Cathy, at my daughter's school about this. Cathy plays the piano every Friday for a school assembly and leads all the children in song. I asked if she liked playing as a child and she said that like all children she hated practicing. It wasn't until much later that she appreciated the gift her parents had given her, and now she uses it every Friday to bring joy to schoolchildren. She urged me to keep pushing my daughter along.
Should parents force their children to play the piano, the violin, the guitar...? Please share experiences with your own kids and from your own childhood.
| May 26 2010 at 08:53 AM
more