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Comment by maroonblazer | Hacker News Reader

I was forced to take classical piano for 6 years starting at age 8. Hated it. Begged my parents to let me quit. They wouldn't.

Then we moved across the country and they said "Ok, you can quit piano."

In my new town I struck up a conversation on the school bus with two kids, one played bass and the other played drums. Said they would get together in the drummer's basement and "jam". "What's this 'jamming' you speak of?" I asked.

They invited me over and we played the one jazz-ish/blues tune I knew. I was hooked. Ran home and begged my parents to let me start lessons again, but this time rock/jazz. Since then I picked up guitar, bass, drums, a little alto sax, and continued studying piano. 40+ years later playing/making music is a huge part of my personal life.

I feel incredibly lucky that my folks didn't let me quit and that I met those two friends.

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I think that people are taking the (rather implicit) message in the article a bit too literally, and overlook the fact that it also takes interest to continue making music. There's simply no way to overcome the initial technical hurdles: they are quite big, although simpler for piano and guitar than for e.g. violin, and simpler for blues than for classical.

IMO, it's good to push your technical skills, but it's pointless if there's no internal reward. I happened to like classical music as a child, so I was frustrated when my first music school focussed on very simple arrangements of middle-of-the-road music. Switching to someone who taught (simple) Bach was much more rewarding, validating even. My parents did let me play whatever I felt like, though. I played my exercises, but also played popular music by ear (mainly for them, BTW).

So talent is one factor, which can be partially overcome by technical exercises, but interest in the music itself is what kept me playing.

I don’t understand the conclusion. Why are you glad that your parents forced you for 6 years, if this had basically nothing to do with your later-found joy for music? Couldn’t the same invitation have happened if you just tried piano for a couple months and remembered your one jazz tune?

A couple of months of weekly piano instruction is simply not enough exposure for most young students to even have "one jazz tune" under their belt. It's likely that the jam session invitation was predicated upon some minimum skill level with the instrument--something that 6 years of even begrudging practice provided.

Maybe because kids don't really know what they wanted.

If he didn't play the first 6years, he won't be able to enjoy "jamming" with friends

Yeah but that's just one of those lucky few that came back to their forced education despite their experience. OP is right, forcing kids into stuff makes most kids hate the subject, completely regardless of its usefulness later in life.

It took me a good decade after high school to find love in topics like geography, biology, history, some parts of physics etc. which were forced down my throat to frankly insane needless levels at school.

A lot of child's momentum is lost because a) teaching well consistently is hard and I see little effort to ie utilize modern psychology for improvement ; b) every kid is unique in many ways, differently developed at early years ; c) being a teacher is seriously underpaid and underappreciated so best leave or don't even start career in it ; d) traditional teaching topics go way too deep and focus more on encyclopaedical knowledge which is sort of obsolete in 2023 ; e) don't focus on properly useful stuff in ie high school like communication, team work, some basic psychology to grok people around you, understanding personal finances and taxation and probably many more reasons.

Most kids aren’t interested in classical music and that probably shouldn’t be the default for so many teaching methods. If you want kids to play, make it fun. Teach them the music they listen to.

When my kids were taking music lessons the teacher would sometimes try to talk to me after the lesson and tell me what they did and wanted to discuss with me what to teach next and my reply was always the same - why are you having this conversation with me? It’s my kid that you have to keep engaged. I’ll keep paying for lessons as long as my kid wants to play. Discuss this with my kid.

Maybe most kids don't really have a chance of learning what they really want, if all their major life choices are made for them.

"If he didn't play the first 6years, he won't be able to enjoy "jamming" with friends"

Have you ever learned something with passion vs were forced to?

When kids want to learn something, they are really, really fast at it, meaning he could have started learning at that moment. And you can do simple jamming, without a proper musical education.

Is that really so far fetched?

I would love to have my parents Force that on me.

Now I'm here, would like to learn and play music but I don't have much time and music feels like a steep mountain to even start.

Do it! I started learning cello during the pandemic despite not playing any other instrument. While I'm probably still worse than children with the same time of practice, it's been fun and really rewarding. I assume it's even more rewarding with a simpler instrument.

Unfortunately I haven't found a way yet to start and stick at it.

The guitar is in the basement.

Lessons with an online teacher have helped me stay on the ball. I'm sometimes frustrated that we aren't in the same room together but the convenience is great. Lessons also can feel a little bit like being back in school, bit initially some stuff comes down to just investing the time and the teacher had helped me avoid bad habits. The latter might be more of a risk with a cello than a guitar though.

The conclusion is forcing did nothing happy. But when wanted you won't stop.

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