<story><title>Kids and music lessons: why do many promising players quit early?</title><url>https://thewalrus.ca/why-do-kids-hate-music-lessons/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>yamtaddle</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve found it &lt;i&gt;surprisingly low effort&lt;/i&gt; to get good enough at guitar and, in fact, piano, that you can start to see social rewards, i.e. people actually want you to play, at least a little.&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile I put in more hours and had far more formal instruction at a woodwind than either of those &lt;i&gt;combined&lt;/i&gt; and... yeah, nobody wanted to hear that shit, it sounds awful (cringe-inducing, even) unless you&amp;#x27;re &lt;i&gt;excellent&lt;/i&gt;. Years of effort and practice and no-one wanted to be around when I was playing (and I can&amp;#x27;t blame them). It&amp;#x27;s super discouraging to have spent that much time and effectively have nothing to show for it—nothing that sounds at least OK, even to &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt; when you record it and play it back.&lt;p&gt;A couple half-assed months on guitar or piano can get you to, &amp;quot;hey, that sounds pretty good!&amp;quot; and get people to start singing along to whatever you&amp;#x27;re playing.&lt;p&gt;You can&amp;#x27;t do a pop- or folk- or standard-tune sing-along with a damn saxophone. I mean, you can, but nobody wants to unless your playing is so good you could go pro.&lt;p&gt;I think the difference is that they&amp;#x27;re good accompaniment instruments, and can play chords. Plus there&amp;#x27;s very little technique to learn to achieve acceptable &amp;amp; reasonably consistent tone.&lt;p&gt;Now, I&amp;#x27;m sure getting to the point of being able to play solo instrumentals that anyone cares to hear on either of those, is much harder (I was &lt;i&gt;getting there&lt;/i&gt; on the guitar at my peak, but still hadn&amp;#x27;t achieved it), but there&amp;#x27;s just &lt;i&gt;nothing&lt;/i&gt; for most other instruments, as far as natural encouragement or reward from others, until you&amp;#x27;re awesome at them.</text></item><item><author>ehaskins</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been teaching beginning guitar lessons for about seven years. Guitar is a little different in that, outside of classical guitar, there&amp;#x27;s very little traditional pedagogy, but from experience I think these things are generally true about most instruments.&lt;p&gt;1. When you start learning you sound terrible... for a long time. It&amp;#x27;s very difficult to stay motivated when you can hear your problems.&lt;p&gt;2. It&amp;#x27;s very difficult to judge your own progress. I&amp;#x27;ve started recording short videos during lessons which I can show to students weeks or months later when they&amp;#x27;re expressing frustration with their progress.&lt;p&gt;3. You have to &lt;i&gt;enjoy&lt;/i&gt; practicing, since you have to pick up the instrument most days to maintain the dexterity, callouses, etc. It&amp;#x27;s very easy for a pushy parent to beat the joy out of practicing.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;s very easy to stagnate if you only play.&lt;p&gt;Really it boils down to, you&amp;#x27;re going to suck for a while, then you&amp;#x27;re going to think you suck even when you don&amp;#x27;t, and you have to keep enjoying the process even when you think you suck.&lt;p&gt;&amp;#x2F;edit formatting</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>spacemadness</author><text>This is why guitar is considered a folk instrument. I think that’s what’s cool about guitar—-its low floor but high ceiling. You can strum open chords or on the other end learn difficult pieces on classical guitar. Similar to what you shared, classical guitarists will tell you nobody cares when they’re playing something super difficult. Sometimes people just can’t tell the effort it takes and don’t relate to the piece being played.&lt;p&gt;As a guitarist I found piano even easier to sound decent as there is no real threat of accidentally muting anything or plucking at a weird angle. But if you’re musically inclined its pretty easy to tell who has dedicated the time to learning it well.</text></comment>
<story><title>Kids and music lessons: why do many promising players quit early?</title><url>https://thewalrus.ca/why-do-kids-hate-music-lessons/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>yamtaddle</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve found it &lt;i&gt;surprisingly low effort&lt;/i&gt; to get good enough at guitar and, in fact, piano, that you can start to see social rewards, i.e. people actually want you to play, at least a little.&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile I put in more hours and had far more formal instruction at a woodwind than either of those &lt;i&gt;combined&lt;/i&gt; and... yeah, nobody wanted to hear that shit, it sounds awful (cringe-inducing, even) unless you&amp;#x27;re &lt;i&gt;excellent&lt;/i&gt;. Years of effort and practice and no-one wanted to be around when I was playing (and I can&amp;#x27;t blame them). It&amp;#x27;s super discouraging to have spent that much time and effectively have nothing to show for it—nothing that sounds at least OK, even to &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt; when you record it and play it back.&lt;p&gt;A couple half-assed months on guitar or piano can get you to, &amp;quot;hey, that sounds pretty good!&amp;quot; and get people to start singing along to whatever you&amp;#x27;re playing.&lt;p&gt;You can&amp;#x27;t do a pop- or folk- or standard-tune sing-along with a damn saxophone. I mean, you can, but nobody wants to unless your playing is so good you could go pro.&lt;p&gt;I think the difference is that they&amp;#x27;re good accompaniment instruments, and can play chords. Plus there&amp;#x27;s very little technique to learn to achieve acceptable &amp;amp; reasonably consistent tone.&lt;p&gt;Now, I&amp;#x27;m sure getting to the point of being able to play solo instrumentals that anyone cares to hear on either of those, is much harder (I was &lt;i&gt;getting there&lt;/i&gt; on the guitar at my peak, but still hadn&amp;#x27;t achieved it), but there&amp;#x27;s just &lt;i&gt;nothing&lt;/i&gt; for most other instruments, as far as natural encouragement or reward from others, until you&amp;#x27;re awesome at them.</text></item><item><author>ehaskins</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been teaching beginning guitar lessons for about seven years. Guitar is a little different in that, outside of classical guitar, there&amp;#x27;s very little traditional pedagogy, but from experience I think these things are generally true about most instruments.&lt;p&gt;1. When you start learning you sound terrible... for a long time. It&amp;#x27;s very difficult to stay motivated when you can hear your problems.&lt;p&gt;2. It&amp;#x27;s very difficult to judge your own progress. I&amp;#x27;ve started recording short videos during lessons which I can show to students weeks or months later when they&amp;#x27;re expressing frustration with their progress.&lt;p&gt;3. You have to &lt;i&gt;enjoy&lt;/i&gt; practicing, since you have to pick up the instrument most days to maintain the dexterity, callouses, etc. It&amp;#x27;s very easy for a pushy parent to beat the joy out of practicing.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;s very easy to stagnate if you only play.&lt;p&gt;Really it boils down to, you&amp;#x27;re going to suck for a while, then you&amp;#x27;re going to think you suck even when you don&amp;#x27;t, and you have to keep enjoying the process even when you think you suck.&lt;p&gt;&amp;#x2F;edit formatting</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>djtango</author><text>Was mildly triggered by your comment at first, being a pianist, but on reflection you&amp;#x27;re right. The skill floor for the piano is objectively lower thanks to being percussive. But my god is it difficult trying to &lt;i&gt;sing&lt;/i&gt; with a percussive instrument while also accompanying yourself with and extra 2-3 voices.&lt;p&gt;Timbre, vibrato and dynamic control over a single note mean that people will pay to listen to a beautiful singer or sax play a single line of music but my god does a pianist or guitarist have to work to keep up with that.</text></comment>