Should you Let your Kids Quit the Piano?

Never give up! How I hate that phrase.

Now and then, I hear people say they wish their parents had made them keep taking piano lessons. Well, I was one of those kids who had to take piano lessons for years and years after I wanted to stop. Long story short: I'm not grateful for those goddamn lessons. Nor do I play the piano anymore despite having some aptitude for it. I don't have any desire to.

My mother started taking me to piano lessons when I was six and I said I'd like to play. For four years, all was well. Then I reached the limit of my ability: I didn't have the dexterity to play really difficult pieces, despite lots and lots of practice. And many of the practice pieces didn't interest me. I asked to quit.

But my mother, wishing she'd had piano lessons, frog-marched me to more piano lessons for the next four years. It was nothing but an exercise in frustration and probably learned helplessness. Practicing didn't help me improve. My teacher tried to guilt-trip me about taking money out of my mother's pocket and wasting it. Uh, no: my mother was the adult who wasted $1,000 on lessons I didn't want--$1,000 I could have used as a young adult in getting a car or an apartment.

Music is a winner-take-all field; pretty-good musicians don't make much money, if any. A lot of pretty-good musicians enjoy their craft, but kids who want to quit their lessons are clearly tired of them. So it puzzles me why some parents insist on sending their kids to music lessons in the name of never give up! Doesn't school offer enough never-give-up drudgery? Music is a hobby, and it's supposed to be fun. Kids can take it up again if they're interested; they might be more likely to if lessons haven't been shoved at them. It's like attraction: throwing yourself at someone ruins it. Peter Buffett (Warren Buffett's son) quit the piano two or three times, and has said his parents never tried to make him continue to play. He became a professional music composer.

Parents who wish they'd continued their piano lessons should resume their own lessons and leave their kids out of it. They should quit blaming their parents for letting them quit, too. If you're an adult and haven't touched a keyboard in decades, that's on you.

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