Kids and music lessons: why do many promising players quit early?

My mom made me and both of my brothers take 9 years of piano lessons. Today, not one of us plays - I don't think any of us even has a keyboard in our houses.

The reason for this is simply that we were never allowed to play the kind of music we liked. Which was, of course, rock. Or blues, or country. Or, really, anything with a beat.

Nope; it was all classical all the time. And piano lessons were the only time we were ever exposed to classical music otherwise, so we had no opportunity to learn to like it; it was just a source of frustration and boredom.

We weren't even allowed to pick a different instrument; it had to be piano. Because mom wanted us to be able to play the organ in church.

That nine years of lessons was the single biggest waste of time in my entire life, and I work for the government.

In order for a child to learn anything on their own, which is the way a musician has to learn, really, they have to be incentivized. They have to like what they're doing, at least some of the time. The product has to be meaningful. And in music, like so much else in education, whether the child is actually engaged with the process is just never considered.

I've been teaching beginning guitar lessons for about seven years. Guitar is a little different in that, outside of classical guitar, there's very little traditional pedagogy, but from experience I think these things are generally true about most instruments.

1. When you start learning you sound terrible... for a long time. It's very difficult to stay motivated when you can hear your problems.

2. It's very difficult to judge your own progress. I've started recording short videos during lessons which I can show to students weeks or months later when they're expressing frustration with their progress.

3. You have to enjoy practicing, since you have to pick up the instrument most days to maintain the dexterity, callouses, etc. It's very easy for a pushy parent to beat the joy out of practicing.

4. You have to understand the difference between playing that song you can play great, and practicing something you suck at so you improve. It's very easy to stagnate if you only play.

Really it boils down to, you're going to suck for a while, then you're going to think you suck even when you don't, and you have to keep enjoying the process even when you think you suck.

/edit formatting

As someone who runs a music label, ans has been doing this since 1999, it's not worth it to invest heavily into music. The people that make money in the industry, aren't the people that play the instruments.

It's a long gone dream of just making music that has turned into payola, social media corruption, fake audiences, and negative things like drug abuse, lip syncing, fraud, suicide and ghost writers. Don't wish it on your kids, there are countless kid stars that succumb to this toxic industry like Britney Spears, Aaron Carter, and Michael Jackson. For the rest, there's working at guitar center and ripping off others with overpriced music equipment to grant you a health-care-less descent into oblivion as a broke ex musician.

The players that give up may well be saving their own life, if not for a ton of frustration and false hope.

> Music lessons—like many activities taken up during our youth—rest heavily on the student–teacher–parent triad. “Some teachers find it’s their job to make students get better,” Pappas says. “But what a teacher really needs to do is give their students the tools to make themselves better.”

The absolute critical thing for learning, the thing a teach and/or parent must do to make a child successful, is not just giving tools. You have to inspire a child to love music. You have to plant in them the seed of desire to create beautiful sound. And you have to make it fun to do. Otherwise it is just another boring chore, with no clear internalized goal.

When we wanted our children to learn to play an instrument, we spent months playing Bach and Mozzart for them, and explaining what was going on in the music. We played our instruments around them, and let them investigate them. Eventually they started asking us how they could make their own music, and that's when we began lessons.

"If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men and women to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."

Don't you think most kids would also choose to quit maths or history or any other boring subject at school too? This article skirts around the fact that I think is the reason kids quit 90+% of the time: the kids just don't want to do it but their parents are forcing them.

How many young kids actually, genuinely want to play a violin/flute/clarinet? I'd wager very, very few. I don't think it is the teaching method at fault here, it's just that probably very few kids want to play an instrument.

Of course kids will quit boring/tedious stuff when they are not forced/compelled to continue. You can't just opt out of learning maths (at least in the UK you can't anyway), but music "lessons" are obviously optional (in the UK there is/was music classes that taught theory, reading music notation etc to the entire class, but not how to play a specific instrument).

My kids are still too young, but when it happens I am strongly going to lobby for them learning an instrument that at least has the possibility of them seeming cool to their peers (so e.g. guitar or drums or whatever) and so something they are more likely to want to continue, rather than forcing Mozart + oboe on a 14 year old or whatever.

Everyone is talking about being forced into music as a kid, but I think another factor is the talent gap. Just like steroids messes with people's body image, hearing nothing but the best musicians on the planet perfectly quantized and auto tune means the gap between a beginner (or even intermediate) and all the music we hear is immense.

Music isn't as communal anymore unless you have a friend or family that plays. I find it difficult to find an on ramp to playing with people. I don't know what good enough is because all I've been hearing in every song since I was 5 has been "perfect".

Disclosure: I'm one of the survivors, as are both of my kids. I started classical cello lessons in 4th grade, and just kept going, though 50 years later I'm a jazz bassist. My kids started on string lessons, and are both good classical musicians today.

In my view there's no silver bullet that will reduce the attrition rate for kids learning to play music, and I think no reason to believe that classical lessons are even significantly better or worse than any other approach.

As mentioned in the article, being part of a musical family helps, but is not a silver bullet. The musician parents tend to be more laid back about it, more patient about progress, less focused on competition. Very few of them express an interest in their kids pursuing music careers, though it sometimes happens anyway. Most just talk about the lifelong enjoyment of music.

Every instrument has a unique learning curve. Yeah, the violin. Guitar and piano are no easier to play at a high level, but can at least produce a decent tone from the beginning.

One thing that might help a bit is starting kids younger, before they are old enough to be self conscious about sucking. Those kids also get chances to play with other kids, and everybody applauds.

I have no aspirations of a music career, but I do get paid to play, and my main band has a small but loyal following. If you have a day job, as I do, you can pick and choose among different aspects of the music business. For instance I have no interest in making or selling recordings, touring, or being famous. I do expect to play with fairly high caliber musicians.

I have heard it said that most people that have a life-long love of playing music can either play by ear, or sight read. We started our sprout on Suzuki-method violin at an early age, and I learned a whooooole lot about how to teach skills (not just music) from that. We had an excellent violin teacher. First of all, it has to be fun. It is more important that practice be fun every day, than it cover all the assigned material every day. It must be kept fun. And incremental -- the teaching points are introduced gradually so that nothing is frustratingly difficult. Just keep having fun every day, and emphasize playing well and correctly, not on racing through more material for the sake of some kind of false progress.

The early stages of Suzuki-method, of course, emphasize ear training. When the kid reaches 6 or so (early reading stage), they also start to learn to read music -- and by then they are likely playing Vivaldi concertos, learned by ear, so ear-training is well established. Eventually my kiddo also learned to sight-read.

But throughout -- it has to be kept fun. Yeah a constant diet of classical is great for teaching skills, but you want to use those skills on fun stuff. The lucky thing about violin is the huge body of traditional fiddle music from several cultures, and also jazz fiddle. And the local Suzuki teachers put on a weekend fiddle camp every year that was hugely fun as a camp experience over-and-above the music activities.

Anyway, kid developed life-long love of music, still plays pretty much every day, after coming home from day-job as an engineer.

My son started cello at four, at a local music school for kids. Preucil School of Music

He's still playing at 29. Still sounds good. Still enjoying it.

He played simple songs at first, then more complicated ones. They were appropriate for where he was at, and he was happy to play them.

They taught by ear, didn't read music for years. So he could work on sounding good from the start.

Something he learned early was deliberate practice, where you go very slowly thru the song making sure each phrase sounds good. Then you speed it up and string the phrases together. In a few days you're playing full speed and sounding good.

See, you never want to practice playing it badly. That trains you into playing bad music, and you have to undo the damage you just did to yourself.

It’s about

- matching content to interests. I took classical guitar, my guitar teacher realized I was really into blues (way into very capable rock guitar), so I learned classical for the theory and enjoyment of pieces e2e, and blues for a significantly growing interest as a “rock kid.” The more solid electric guitar I learned, the more I realized the classical background was making me good, and it played back and forth like that and I took music lessons until I went to college.

- I think bands are a big part of why kids stick with music. The happiest times in my life growing up were the 2 hr jams after school. Option to find bar bands is what keeps me playing as an adult as well. I don’t know if high school bands are still out there with all the tech now? Def curious.

It all paid off - I landed in tech somewhat bc DS&A and OOD == music scales and chord progressions, programming == creativity with known safe bounds like like in music. And I can find bands to play with until I’m old.

If a kid already dislikes or is apathic to something (eg being forced to learn an instrument) then being forced into it by the parents will make him hate it for life.

"Some teachers find it’s their job to make students get better," Pappas says. "But what a teacher really needs to do is give their students the tools to make themselves better."

In my opinion, both approaches are wrong. The job of a good teacher is to make learning fun. Once you enjoy practicing, skill follows automatically.

An important lesson I’ve learned in the past few years learning to drum is that I rarely improve while practicing. I practice, and practice, and then at some point I come back and I can already do the new skill.

I wish I’d understood this as a younger person. I might have learned a lot of things.

I quit because I hated the music I was asked to play. When I was 5, I started piano with an amazing teacher (a local college professor) and made serious progress, both in skills and learning things like chord theory over the next four years. He would write out every piece I was to learn by hand in my book when I was getting started

I moved and the teacher my parents found that I could walk to only selected pieces that I didn't like which were technically difficult, but didn't sound good to me even after I learned them. She had to figure out what level I was and go through boring books of theory that moved way too slowly. I only much later found out you could buy sheet music of artists I actually liked.

I quit lessons and started composing instead, moving that to the computer when I got an Amiga 1000.

Because it’s the parents wish (and vicariousness) that they play for “success”, rather than the kid’s own personal fun & interest?

I was forced into music as a kid, because marching band was the least terrible way to get the fine arts and athletic credits I needed. By all accounts, I wasn't terrible at it (often got 1st chair, etc), but I hated it. The problem is the performance aspect. I'm an extreme introvert and always have been. Doing something in order to be seen/heard doing it is basically torture.

The article never really seems to consider that the kids just don't enjoy it. "The parents suck the fun out", or "the lack of freedom makes it boring". No. It's just not enjoyable on its own merits.

My piano teacher was telling me about some lady was 90 and still giving lessons. She said her ideal death would be to go while waiting for her next student, and the person who found her would be the one who never practices.

Since I don't play anymore, and she moved away anyway, I have a more relaxed attitude about it. I also meet lots and lots of people who studied, but now don't play either.

It really isn't that satisfying for a lot of people, let's face it. If it is for you, that's great and I'm genuinely happy for you. But there's nothing wrong with not wanting to play. It doesn't mean there was any fault in your teachers or your learning methods. Now you pick up your instrument or sit down at it, and everything's difficult. Pieces you used to play are now impossible.

In the old days, playing music and listening to music were much more closely related. Nowadays, you can hear a much better version of the Goldberg Variations than you'll ever manage to play (and if that statement doesn't fit you, I apologize). You can hear guitar solos that you have no hope of ever playing. Furthermore, your friends most likely don't want to hear you. Once you've made them smile with your Smoke on the Water riff they'll politely move on.

I think it's a good thing to have done. It makes you appreciate the music you listen to, much much more. But if you don't practice anymore, don't feel bad about it.

As with programming, I think you really need a certain drive. My little sister was supported to learn an instrument, but I took it and taught it myself, mostly to impress my family. Then on I played in bands, and I am still a musician. And my sister even though she was forced to do lessons doesn't play at all. One of my best friends started guitar, but then left it, because it is just so much work. I think the drive, and the need for showmanship are so important.

Children need to learn to be gritty if they are not born with it.

Overly generalizing here. All things in life is either instantly gratifying but in long term harmful or initially grinding but in long term joyful. How are children supposed to know something will be fun 10 years, 20 years down the road? They either pick up from parent/peers/school or us parent imposed our version of "later it will be cool" on them.

I was a classically trained Oboist as a child and I had some excellent teachers, but they only taught me to play and sight read pieces with technical perfection. Needless to say this was not fun and so I quit halfway through highschool. I ended up picking up the electric bass a couple years later and enjoyed it because there were no expectations and I could just learn and play on my own. As a kid lessons can just feel like a chore/school.

Back then I was one of the promising kid. My teacher had even prepared a few scores for me to practice for the entrance exam of a very good music academy. But I decided to drop it.

Reasons:

- I don't really enjoy the whole stuff very much. It involves a lot of boring practices. I still remember that back in the day, when everyone was enjoying holidays and weekends I had to practice 4+ hours every day. My parents were very pushy about this so very quickly it's a complete chore for me, except for occasions.

- I hate memorizing stuffs. But for music performance you got to memorize most of the stuffs you are going to perform. I was very nervous about this. I won a few minor prizes but never enjoyed the process. I only wanted to play for myself, not for an audience.

- I was not that talented anyway. There were tons of promising kid and I was just one of them.

BTW I never practiced piano again afterwards. It has been over two decades. I might pick it up again and hopefully can play some Well Tempered Clavier again (I managed to play a few of them before I dropped it) -- although I stopped practicing, I have grown up enough to enjoy Bach, the most romantic composer in the world.

I was all set to quit growing up until I discovered gamemusicthemes.com. I had a blast playing my favorite video game music and coercing my piano teacher to play some of the more difficult stuff. Even now, I have a binder of sheet music from that site that I play from time to time.

My parents have never heard of the site even to this day. If you ask them, I'm just naturally hard-working and passionate.

Anectodal. Between 4-8 years old I took piano, guitar and solfege classes. I first went to a state conservatory when I was 4 and they told my parents i was super talented and I should go there. My mom did not like how strict they were and was afraid I would get traumatized so I took private classes.

I hated every minute of all of them. I would barely (mostly never) touch the homework until the next class and the teacher would just (i presume to keep receiving money from my parents) go along with it. I went through books called Beyer (2 of them), Czerny and Hanon. They were boring as hell.

What they never taught me was how to make my own music. Now I'm into electronic music I am just practicing scales and chords and voicings by myself on top of drum patterns I write myself and I can't get enough of it!

I think the main problem is that parents just wants their children to be classy and do recitals and just perform in front of guests and stuff and children hate that shit, and I guess the teachers just want the fucking money.

Playing music for me is a deep, deep state of being. If all goes well it is a bit like what I feel when programming when I am in the flow, but even more direct and imidiate.

But it took me quite some time to get there, especially without teachers. But compared to my neighbor who learned the same instrument aince she was a kid I could just sit there and play. Without notes she did not know what to do. "Just explore the instrument" seemed like a wild and undoable prompt to her.

My believe is that many kids who go into music, imagined something else than it turned out to be. My believe is also that many music schools teach things in the wrong order. They teach you how to speak before you know how to make a sound. Even after more than a decade of playing I still find new ways to make my instruments sound.

A few points:

The number of people who have a go at playing music professionally far exceeds the number of people who end up making a living doing so. The majority of aspiring professional musicians end up as...music teachers.

Of those that do make a go of it, the majority are probably playing in wedding bands or something similar. The proportion who end up joining a professional symphony orchestra, make a good living from being a singer-songwriter, or in a jazz band (say) is vanishingly small.

If you don't care about making a living from it and just want to play as a hobby, it's a demanding one if you want to be good enough so that people will voluntarily listen to you. You have to put in a lot of practice just to maintain your skills.

As such, is it really that surprising that most people give it away at some point?

What's crazy is that I did this to myself. I got a guitar for my 14th birthday, and I, for some reason, got it into my head that learning the guitar was HARD WORK and I needed to do it THE RIGHT WAY. I had an acoustic and I started with boring rote practice. Got bored and didn't pick it up again for 20 years, with an electric, and the resolution that I would only ever do fun things, and find exercises that I enjoyed. I've made more progress than ever in skill and I enjoy it 100x more. I think this isn't exactly the way I'd approach it with my kid (but then again why not?), but it was a key revelation.

I started playing bass guitar when I was 11. My father told me no when I asked if I could play bass.

Since my parents were divorced I was able to talk to my Mom about it. She got me a cheap used bass. I was so happy- it felt like I was meant to be a bass player. I played it every day. Wrote songs, learned songs. Eventually I earned a B.M. and had a music career.

Growing up in a family that didn’t play music, I’m not sure how I feel about pushing music lessons on my kids. No one made me do it, but no one could stop me either.

I just try to have gear available for them to mess with. If they get that drive to be a musician, I’ll be there to help.

For me, it was the content. I stopped playing piano at 14, because my teacher really wanted me to play classical. Not a fan.

I came back to piano later by myself when I wanted to play video game music. Then I wanted to play stuff from movies, pop songs, etc. I started watching interesting videos on reharmonization and tried that on some pop hits to interesting effect. I wouldn’t say I “stopped” completely, but my relationship with the instrument is completely different than it was when I was taking full time lessons growing up. I’m at the point where I might take it up again, but I would have specific goals in mind now.

There's an underappreciated part of music making that I rarely see represented in music curriculum unless you're in an actual music school: Playing with other people.

I don't mean playing together as an ensemble where the music is already written - though that is important. I mean PLAYING and improvising. Exploring. Simply having fun. Developing your ear, not only for your instrument, but how to listen and react to your collaborators. Making mistakes. Going off-road and being wildly experimental. That's such an important component of what makes music wonderful. Even if you don't have an audience to perform to, and even if you and your friends are objectively terrible it is FUN to express yourself and to synchronize with your friends and have a laugh when you do something satisfying.

As you all mature you become tuned-in to your band. You work as a unit. You surprise each other. You keep each other fresh. You learn to listen deeper and deeper. You discover ways to interpret the same composition several different ways. It becomes a playground.

Perhaps most importantly, there are ZERO RULES. Nobody dies if you play the wrong chord. So you go big. You learn to take risks and occasionally you surprise yourself with what's possible. Music (and perhaps art and creativity in general) demonstrate that so much in life is malleable. That things don't have to be a certain way. That most of it is open to negotiation.

I’m a professional pianist and raised a daughter who is now classical violin performance major in music school. The article mentions this; and I agree completely: the parents’ level of involvement and the centrality of music in the communal life of the family seems to be the most important predictor or progress, interest and determination to continue. It’s really almost a sine qua non. It’s sad when students quit, but sometimes it’s better to recognize the lack of resonance with one’s deeper self earlier rather than later. I coach chamber music ensembles comprised of talented high school players - violinists, violists, cellists, and pianists. These kids work exceedingly hard. Somewhere around 13-14 years of age, kids kind of know where they stand with regard to music. Better to realize the true nature of your relationship to music than to suffer through it and carry unwarranted resentment around for the rest of one’s life.

I started learning to play the piano and training in Tae Kwon Do at around the same age. There's a similarity in both skills, in that you need to practice all the time, learn the drills; be they scales and playing Baa Baa Black Sheep, or Poomsae and running through three step sparing.

Today I'd struggle to find middle C on a keyboard, but I do run my own Freestyle Martial Arts club. The difference was not parental pressure. Mum made me go to both classes, and made me practice both piano and martial arts at home. I hated doing both. I would feign illness or injury not to go.

My TKD instructor was nothing short of inspiring though. He was an Olympic coach and really put effort into training me. My piano teacher pulled my mum aside after a lesson, before I'd even gone for grade one, and told her that he saw no hope in me, and that she should stop lessons.

I don't really know what I'm trying to say here other than my instructors faith in me had more of an influence than any particular pedagogical approach.

My SO got a classical musical "high-end" education (as both her sisters). She stopped around the age of 15. Her sister stopped as well as teen. Her other sister is about to start a real professional/international classical career.

The foundation for such a career starts usually around the age of 5 or 6 and its *lots* of studying and playing. When you are not able to play like at least 4 hours every day you just can stop. There are times where you have to exercise 8, 10 or more hours until <insert body part> gets bloody.

Their parents are professional musicians too. The work just never stops. They both get like 4-6 hours sleep a day. That while teaching (university), learning/memorizing new lassic pieces and making sure the kids do the same while also making sure they get to casts and performances all over the world (at least at some state, before you have to attent to national auditions.) Sure because they are teaching as well, you dont have to do that, I guess.

Pressure and super rote methods that suck all the "play" out of "playing music".

As a boy, my parents had me doing royal conservatory piano. The thing is that I really enjoyed piano, but I didn't want to have to do recitals or exams. Once I was old enough to really say no, I quit lessons. I still play, but it's mostly chording. I have always been pretty good at playing by ear, and even when I was in lessons, I did better mimicking the teacher than I did sight-reading.

I still play a bit of piano, but I'm no-where near as good as when I was practicing regularly when I was young. I've also picked up guitar a bit, but I'm just chording there, too.

That said, I play to have fun, to entertain my son, or just to belt out a fun tune.

I've played guitar and piano for 35 years, primarily improvisational styles (blues / jazz). I had a year of classical training, but gave it up - and only returned to music several years later.

In my view, music is whatever you want it to be - you play what you want, and if it appeals to people, they will listen. Of course there's knowledge to be passed on (harmony, scales, patterns of rhythm) - but that's all it is - knowledge, which might help a player to better express what they want. A lot of music education treats these concepts as holy writ, which they are most definitely not.

I’ve collected and played guitar for over 20 years and I am thinking of selling them on now. I may keep one but I am just not playing them anymore. I’ve kind of settled in to the ability to play and remember most chords and a dozen or so songs. I’m no longer writing music with guitar and my fingers just aren’t as fast as they once were. That said I’m having more fun than ever with a handful of synths/samplers/a rhodes and ableton live. I will say that with the caveat that I wish I had the ability to play guitar or any instrument really well

When I was young, I used to play the tabla (Indian percussion instrument). Loved playing it, but to continue learning I had to give multipe written exams for at least 5 years dealing with the history of Indian classical music in a language I wasn't comfortable with. The history was boring, and the textbooks were in a convoluted formal language.

What used to be a very enjoyable hobby turned into a chore, which I didn't have too much time for when the all-important tenth grade exams came nearer. So I stopped practicing altogether. Haven't missed it much.

I played trumpet, baritone, and tuba from elementary through high school. Learning how to play well was a grind for years and I didn't really start to enjoy it until I reached high school and was a part of a good ensemble.

It's definitely not fun when you and everyone around you is bad. Having a horrible teacher for a few years along the way didn't help either and drove most of my classmates to quit.

I do miss it and part of me wishes I had continued in college because I would have really enjoyed the challenge. But I was tired of "band cliques" and wanted to move on.

I would love any input. My five year old daughter asked for a guitar on Christmas. I took her to the music store and let her pick a ukelele. She loves to play at it hard and sing, and doesn’t “get” that she’s just strumming blindly and making noise. it’s adorable but I wonder if there is something I can do to nudge her. At the moment I’m thinking to

1) act impressed when she plays 2) get my own and let her see how I learn to play it

(I tried borrowing hers but she’s very territorial about her guitar.)

These are not high stakes but it would be so nice to see it go somewhere.

What do?

The music and athletic pipelines are similar in that a really large number of kids enter the funnel and a vanishingly few come out the other end as well paid pros.

Pretty much the same with art.

That said, there is reward in the pleasure non pros can have in music, art and sports. But these people will need to have day jobs.

Nowadays the proliferation of easily available music online tends to smother music making at home.

Half a century ago, most every middle class home and school classroom had a piano.

Yep, there's a love/hate relationship with practicing, plus its imposition on the rest of the household.

Because the teacher was a jerk. I wish I never quit. I loved playing sax.

Possibly because of the amount of pressure that the parents put on the children. Just because the parent likes music doesn't mean that the kid has to like music too.

As a result of this, the child will end up having a hatred towards the musical form and will never even try to give 100%, and without trying no-one can know that they have talent.

A solution to this would be to make it only optional - but then again there'd be the lazy talented ones who don't want to try anything

I can’t believe it’s surprising that taking something joyous and fun and using it to torture small children somehow discourages them from pursuing it in the future.

I'm a math prof, who took up cello in middle age. I'm struck by the parallels between music and math education. Take the comments here and change a few words to math and this is a typical list of posts in response to a HN math education piece (at least, a recent one).

> Despite his skill, he turned away from the environment he associated with music, an environment he found distasteful and anti­thetical to his being.

This seems to apply in other fields as well by the way; the correspondence to "the YOLO guy" for example is striking.

Some kids are prodigies. Here is a video of 9-year-old Taj Farrant playing the guitar like God made him for that purpose: https://youtu.be/E0eACoei1eo

My two kids are playing and the "secret" to motivation is to let them have fun. Like play video game music or whatever they like. When they realize they can express emotions with music, it is easier for them.

Because practicing is tedious.

I went through with it: https://magarshak.com/piano

And what was the point in the end? Classical music doesn’t have the fan base it used to.

I wonder what is the ratio of "promising" players in those who get some training? If there is substantial amount of kids called promising isn't it just expected that most of them quit?

Not every hobby is for everyone, even if they're good at it. You don't have the time to get good at everything and yo have to choose, beings innately get this.

One can choose to do what one is kinda bad at.

I was never a promising player, but playing sax in the school band was just boring. When it came time to go to high school the choice was marching band or jazz band. Both sounded miserable so I quit.

Music is dopamine and serotonin. Loop through music with kids till they get that hit. Dance, enjoy.

Then see how to create a variant of it.

Fricking scales and theory. Totally the wrong way to grab peoples attention.

A story worth reading if for the dramatic ending itself.

I was handed a violin when I wanted a guitar. Interestingly I took it up again 20 years later and now play the fiddle in a rock band.

Playing instruments do not pay the bills and are ultimately useless. (Unless you are in the top 1 percent that make it.)

It’s taught in the same way math is taught. Boring. Get them to play music, any music. Make songs!

Maybe focus more on making music instead of playing music that others made.

Where there is music there is hope!

Here's the main issues that I see replicated in some comments here:

1. Judgment hinders learning and many teachers judge some sounds as terrible, bad, or wrong. Acceptance of all sounds is the key, which requires deep deprogramming for many, and doing it just in the context of music is harder than doing it in daily life. Unlearn judgment in both supports unleashing in both contexts.

2. Forcing material or a certain learning progression is a denial of autonomy. This also hinders learning. Much easier to joyfully engage with chosen material in the ways one wants. If someone wants to learn a specific song, I help them learn it. If they want to learn by watching a video of someone playing that song over and over, sometimes playing along, sometimes not, I'm right there with them.

3. Sticking to culturally familiar sounds. This is a way to teach music within a box of sorts. Diversity of exposure widens perspectives and allows for more creativity. Playing Sun Ra for students and saying "this is also music" is a way to widen their perspectives easily.

4.Shallow listening training. Learning to mindfully listen is an important skill, especially for learning music. Teaching mindfulness practices (not necessarily mindfulness meditation, unless ready to help them through trauma...get some EMDR buzzers and scripts and practice on yourself first) such as mindful walking, looking at trees and contemplating different ways to interpret "looking at the space between branches," and mindful breathing/eating/pooping can help students develop the ability to focus (helps with rhythm & keeping time), become more connected with their body, and allow for better recall of music. Deep listening is a form of practice.

5. Set ways of doing things, like how to hold and play the guitar. When the 2-year old we care for was asked one day to show how to hold the guitar that was as long as their body, they showed how they could play it in 5 or 6 different positions/postures, some of which involved it being upside down. Nobody taught them that and nobody told them "that's not how you hold a guitar!" They learned through free exploration. My first time watching Marshall Allen play saxophone was a few years ago. Watching him scrape the keys with the back of his hand made me realize how stuck I was in my ways of thinking about technique.

6. Insisting on keeping time. This is a notoriously difficult thing for many people with ADHD and the music teaching cultures I've encountered have always insisted on the ability. I've been told most of my life nobody would ever play with me if I couldn't keep time. I'm willing to play with people who can't keep time, so this is no longer true. Do not teach it any longer and recognize that people playing out of time in experiments will eventually sync up. If you stop the music before then, it keeps them from getting to practice resync'ing, which keeps them stuck. Acceptance is key here, too.

The 4-year old I conceived and nurture plays every instrument ťhey find and sings their own tunes with their own lyrics. This is without pushing them toward any of it. They can jam on the drums with people who've been playing music for years and who are jamming around a fire. I've been teaching myself music for 6 years after 19 years of not playing because I was stuck in anxiety and automated judgment, shame, and frustration around playing music.

I look forward to the way music is typically taught changing drastically in the coming years so we can start hearing much wilder stuff than what we're getting now.

> The final piece I learned with any aplomb was Mozart’s Violin Concerto no. 3 in G Major with a Sam Franko cadenza. The cadenza was a little beyond me: the fingering too tricky, my apathy too high. Playing it was like trying to grasp something just out of reach; with the next stretch, my ligaments would tear and bones would pop out of their sockets. This caused my teacher, my mother, and me angst in no small measure.

Mozart 3 is the first Mozart many violin students study, and this is where a lot of my violin mates quit, too. The problem---apart from the general problem with violin education---is that Mozart requires too much maturity in musicality. There's a reason major violin competitions usually require a Mozart piece at certain rounds, despite the relatively low technical difficulty compared with Romantic concertos or show pieces. The transparency of Mozart is a true test on how well a player understand the music, know how to phrase, and express themselves in an interesting but not peculiar way. A technically well-played Mozart can still sound like monotonous misery if the player doesn't have the ability to interpret it. So, it really only works for goal-oriented students (I've gotta win this competition), and is a chore for a lot of other students.

(And I say this as a big fan of Mozart's music)

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I wasn't a Suzuki kid, but a thing that I felt really envious about, is that a proper Suzuki method encourages playing with your peers to a degree. A Suzuki teacher is supposed to arrange duets, recitals, etc., and it is just much more fun to play with and for your friends, instead of the guy in the mirror.

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I'd like to point out that most of us don't retain every single hobby we attempted as a child. It is a natural outcome of growth, where we understand ourselves better, and learn to achieve happiness in a more strategic manner. I've seen questions by teenagers on violin forums, of such a kind: "I'm entering med school, and I'll be too busy to practice the violin. What should I do?" And just like some wise teachers pointed out, it's easier to be a doctor and an amateur violinist, than the other way around, so focus on your study first, and pick up the violin later when your life is less stressful.

It's fine to give up, for a while, or forever, or replace it with something else. There are many paths towards music, some are much easier or cheaper than others, and even music itself is not the only path to happiness anyway.

We all want to have unlimited time and have mastered all the skills in the world, but we don't have unlimited time, and most of the road to mastery is too long and too hard. It's worth it to sit down with yourself and ask whether this is something you really want, or is it merely the avoidance of cutting a sunken cost.

Because it's pointless!