I would love dd to take Suzuki violin lessons, she is 2 yr 3mo, but there are none in our area. I am not really musical. I can kind of play guitar, like, I know a bunch of chords and strum really badly! So I try and play nursery rhymes almost every day, which she loves.
I thought of taking violin lessons so that once I learned, I could teach her, but I gather it is not all that easy? Plus I am 5 months pregnant, so would probably stop lessons in 3 or 4 months anyway…
What can I do besides play cds and badly play the guitar to her?? Is it possible to convince a private teacher to teach her at this age when they normaty dont start till way later? Or the teacher just would not know how to teach a child this age?
how about going to music classes meant for toddler? not sure about your area, but in hong kong, there are music classes for toddler, age 2 1/2 onwards, for 2 semesters. playing with instruments, not really playing but an introduction to instrument… and recognise some basic music symbols, dancing. and all that.
that might be an idea.
Hi!
I just started taking piano lessons myself (as an adult, mother of two) this year. They told me my son was too young, which I don’t believe, but when you don’t have a teacher, you don’t have a teacher. He’ll start next year.
As far as finding a private teacher for her, i’m sure you could convince someone. I mean, the teacher is still getting paid either way, right? So why wouldn’t they be willing?
My sister just tried to put her five year old boy in Suzuki. She stopped after a couple of weeks because he kept dropping or banging the instrument on everything and it was inevitably going to break. He just wasn’t old enough/mature enough to appreciate that the instrument was really valuable and could be broken. But again, I find the difference between boys and girls (on average) is pretty stark in the area of being able to sit and focus at young ages. Not ALL boys are more active or go-go-go, but many are, which makes it hard to sit still for those kinds of lessons.
Piano is also a good base for other instruments. Did you ever consider trying piano with her? Less breakable/expensive but a very good way to introduce music.
Just an idea. And, like i said, I started piano this year, so i’m sure you can too! It’s a great break from the kids, actually, for half an hour once a week. Very manageable (even if I don’t get to practice as much as I would like to!).
oh, and in my area, at least, the music classes for kids that age are basically just singing/dancing/rhyming classes, which it sounds like you’re already doing at home. They don’t start the actual instrument classes (around here anyway) until the kids are at least four.
I put my eldest in dance classes, which is another way to appreciate music, I think. He loves it. I figured it was a way for him to appreciate music but also manages to be active enough to engage him.
We shared the free report on “Is Music a Birthright?”(http://www.brillkids.com/ext/partners/ebook-free-download-2.php) that gives some perspective the challenges of learning music, and their roots, some of which was brought out in our discussions. SoftMozart has some similar, more in depth articles on the origins and challenges of traditional music notation as well, the summary of which you can see in this thread
What I also added, in a different section, to try and give some perspective of the range of approaches and choices, is a series of posts about the four common approaches to learning piano (up to now). I believe that our methods, both Hellene of SoftMozart and Piano Wizard Academy, begin to shape a “fifth way”. What is important to appreciate is they were both developed in response to something that was not really working, in the context of the limitations of the other approaches, trying to compensate for those gaps and yet leverage their strengths. Though each method has its advocates and champions, including Hellene and I for our own, and those advocates can be as we have seen quite passionate and compelling, NONE OF THESE APPROACHES IS PERFECT. We do strive to honestly “perfect” our process every day, with more and more knowledge, and this forum has been I think very fruitful in its exploration of the options. Here is my latest contribution to that conversation.
I don’t know how many parents are following all this, but I can tell you if you are, you are now MUCH more knowledgeable about both the challenges of music education, and the pallet of options available, and I hope it helps you all find your own unique solution to your children’s needs, and leads to a less dogmatic, more practical, efficient and fun way to bring music into their lives.