Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner For those that quit piano lessons as a child

Children tend to not enjoy anything in which they don't immediately succeed. If I child shows interest long enough to warrant the purchase of a piano, then I think the parent should insist on a reasonable time thereafter, not negotiate. It's a good lesson for the child to be careful what they wish for, and they may find that the extra year or so will influence their decision.

What if the piano was only a few hundred dollars or was not a financial burden? Should a child be forced to play with an expensive toy for a required period of time also? Should parents understand that they should not buy an expensive piano until they know their child has a genuine interest?

I think good parents have ongoing discussions with their children about many things starting from a young age. You can replace "discussion" by "talk" if it suits you.

If the parents are reasonably certain the teacher is not suitable, changing teachers after discussion with their child is the right thing. This should be obvious.

Do you actually expect those that feel the opposite(that they wish they had been allowed to quit earlier and clearly some people feel that way)to come up and mention it?

If you'd taken the trouble to read my post properly, I did say that a parent should sit in on the first few lessons, and then the odd subsequent lesson to make sure things are as they should be.

Actually, oddly enough, no .

Nobody has to come to hear me massacre the classics in my usual inept manner on the piano. They come because they want to hear classical music. That means they are interested in it, and the piano. Therefore, they are a self-selecting audience.

There could certainly e audience members who disliked being forced to take lessons as a child but who like classical music now. Have they ever come up to tell you how much they disliked being forced to take lessons? Of course not.

Using audience comments about how much they wished they had been forced to take lessons as an argument for forcing children to take lessons clearly leaves out adults who wish they hadn't been forced to take lessons. Unless, of course, you don't think people like that exist.

Excellent post WR.

Forrest

Presumably you then re-read my post and switched tack (perhaps realizing you'd misunderstood what I wrote?), and changed to the present post.....

I took lessons for quite a while as a child, but not with a very good teacher. Eventually, in my early teens, I switched to a somewhat better, but not great teacher (that lasted for a year or so, IIRC). Due to various reasons, I decided to quit lessons. But I never really quit playing.

Later, in college, piano was a requirement for the first degree program I tried, and those lessons led to more involvement with the piano once again, for a few years.

What was the question, again? Oh, yes...you want people to talk about the effect of quitting lessons. Actually, I think quitting in my teens was the right thing for me at the time. However, that's largely because the environment was not very supportive for progress, not because of a lack of desire on my part.

Your "building a good work ethic" comment, in a funny way, doesn't apply in my case. Although I loved to play the piano for hours on end when I was young, I never learned how to practice very well. In other words, I didn't work at it much - nobody taught me how, or explained why I should. Because of that, I'd say that much depends on the quality of the guidance one receives and absorbs, rather than on simply continuing with lessons.

But I'm not really a big fan of these kinds of speculations. Life only goes in one direction on the timeline, and the "if only I had done this or that, what would have happened?" questions are not answerable. I can only act in the present, and, as it happens, I am enjoying learning how to practice more effectively now. It may be decades later than when it "should" have happened, but it's not like I can hit an "Undo" button for how my life has unfolded.

No that's not what happened. I didn't understand your post and didn't agree with it,

Gatsbee,

I never liked the music I was playing. I think I would have put in more effort if the teacher and I had had an adult conversation about the music I wanted to play (classical) and what it would take to get there. I remember being jealous of my friend Louise who was playing entry-level Bach. But I was too young/timid to speak up.

What kind of music did your teacher make you play?

In my day, anyone learning to play will automatically start on classical music, once the preliminaries have been done.

I think that if my childhood teacher had got me to play jazz or pop tunes, I'd have been totally turned off piano.

Ben,

It had no genre. Or not any genre that I could discern. That was the problem with it.

She didn't use a method book or books of repertoire. Each piece she gave me was a separate piece of sheet music.

.... but I never said, "Ugh, that's such a dull piece." Fault on both sides, for sure.

A teacher - especially the first teacher - can have such an impact on a child learning the piano.

My first teacher was still in her late teens, and in college, when she took me on as her first piano student. I was inordinately proud when she brandished a red volume of real piano music about a month after starting, and put it in front of me. It said: 'Original and Unabridged Classics'. And the first piece I learnt from it was by 'W.A. Mozart', his Minuet, K1.

Never mind the fact that he was several years younger than me, and barely out of nappies when he wrote it with the help of his father. I was playing original music by a great composer, and no longer would I touch very simplified arrangements of classical tunes ever again.....