Piano, to learn or not to learn?(3) Who is suitable for learning piano?

Original Chairman Rabbit tuzhuxi 2024-03-31 20:16 Hong Kong, China

Rabbit Chairman 20240331

Note: It is said that there are 20 million children learning piano in China, so one in every few primary school students is learning piano, and the coverage rate is wide and the penetration rate is high, which may be the highest in the world. A lingering question is: In the era of entering a new round of scientific and technological revolution led by artificial intelligence, the whole society is seeking a new quality of productive transformation, and the new generation of young people is facing an unprecedented fierce competition for talents in the future, is it reasonable for Chinese families to invest extracurricular education resources in European middle-class families one or two hundred years ago? Is our education advancing with the times? Are we preparing our children? Will we let our children be eliminated by the times? In this article, we will discuss which families and children are more suitable for children to learn piano, and if they do not learn piano, they should devote their limited time to other hobbies, especially if both parents and children love music.

If your family is struggling with whether to let your child learn the piano (including piano, violin and other instruments with a long learning cycle), please refer to the views of this article.

1. Why do ordinary families want to learn piano? From 18th to 19th century Europe to contemporary society

2. Why piano education is so popular among contemporary Chinese families

3. Some problems in piano education

(2) Why is piano so popular in China, and the problem of piano education

4. Which families and children are more suitable for piano learning?

The term "learning piano" here does not refer to a general short-term study based on a momentary interest, but a serious, serious, systematic, and professional study that is intended to be invested in a considerable period of time (such as more than several years). These have high requirements for students and parents to invest time and energy resources, and it can be seen that there is an opportunity cost to attend classes (i.e., if you take piano lessons, you can't take other classes), as well as precipitation costs and path-dependent risks ("I have already passed the sixth level, it is better to grit my teeth and persevere").

1) The child has a strong love for piano and music

The child has a strong love for the piano. For example:

- Able to drive the piano independently;

- I will play the piano by myself in my spare time, and playing the piano is also entertainment;

- Tell your parents that you want to play a piano piece or watch a piano recital;

- I usually pay a lot of attention to things related to the piano;

——Playing the piano as self-confidence and pride;

——Expressing the hope of growing up and taking the piano as a career;

Children have a strong love for music. For example:

- I like to listen to music and enjoy music;

- Pay attention to music in life, care about music-related topics and things, and be willing to take the initiative to "dig" music (for example, if you find that your parents can find all kinds of music on music apps, your children will take the initiative to find music)

- The child will ask the family to play music or ask to attend a concert;

- a broad interest in music, including not just one instrument, but multiple instruments;

- Develop your favorite composers, musicians, styles, genres, etc. (this is musical, which is different from star-chasing)

- Expressing the idea of growing up and working in music.

A child's love for the piano and music can be transformed into self-motivation to learn, and for such children, learning the piano is natural, happy, spontaneous, and the effect is the best. Be careful not to turn your parents' dreams or visions into your children's hobbies. It is true that it is necessary to guide and develop children's interests, but it is also necessary to observe children's real interests, whether they like it or not. It is not possible to use simple material stimuli to get a momentary response from the child, and it does not mean that the child really likes music. Only when the child really likes something can he really invest in it for a long time and eventually make it his own.

Children's love for piano and music requires long-term careful observation, and parents themselves also need to have a certain degree of musical accomplishment.

2) The child shows an aptitude for piano and music

Contemporary piano training, detached from the superficial, is actually very close to the athlete who practices a specific sport: it requires a lot of repeated physical training and memorization of a sport or movement, and finally achieves complete proficiency and mastery. However, people have different physical conditions and different natural endowments. There are "natural" footballers, and there are "natural" pianists, one thing. Therefore, to be able to learn the piano well and enjoy the piano for a long time, children also need to have a talent for piano and music.

You can observe whether your child has a talent for music, such as:

- Children can easily remember melodies and be able to hum tunes they have heard;

- The child has a strong pitch and does not sing out of tune;

- Children can easily notice that others have lost their voices;

- When a piece is played in a different key or way, the child will be able to discover it quickly;

- The child is able to identify and respond to the emotions behind different music and interpretations;

- The child's body movements, expressions, and emotions can respond to and cooperate with music;

- Give your child an instrument so that he can play a simple tune based on his memory of the melody;

- the child is willing to spend a lot of time fiddling with and studying the instrument himself (and probably not just one instrument);

- Children can hear details of music that are not noticed by everyday people, such as recognizing a piece by a few notes, and can distinguish granular details in complex music;

- Connecting the sounds of life with music;

- be able to respond, understand, memorize and interpret music suitable for adults (with more complex melodies, structures and expressions);

- Children can find a source of confidence in music

- In the case of the piano, in addition to the feeling of music, the child also needs to have good physical coordination, and be able to translate the brain's cognition and response to music to the fingers. These can be trained to a certain extent, but they also require talent

If the child is indeed musically gifted and has shown a talent for the instrument, then the child should be encouraged to learn music. Learning musical instruments, including the piano, became a matter of course.

From the above, it can be seen that whether a child's musical talent can be accurately identified also requires a certain degree of musical accomplishment from parents/families. If parents themselves do not understand music, do not understand music, and lack basic education and literacy, then they will not be able to discover talent, or it is easy to mistake some wrong appearances for musical talent, or they are easily misled by training institutions.

3) The family's music education tradition, atmosphere and long-term support

Children want to learn piano and music well for a long time, and they cannot do without the long-term support of their parents/families. You can refer to whether the following "conditions" are met:

- Parents have received a certain amount of music education, have a certain degree of musical accomplishment, and can first understand and discuss music;

- One of the parents knows the piano and plays the piano instrument at home from time to time. For children, the piano is part of everyday life from the beginning;

- Parents who do not know how to play the piano but can play other instruments and can play other instruments at home, for children, playing musical instruments is part of daily life;

- It doesn't matter if parents don't know how to play musical instruments, it's okay to love singing and dancing, because singing and dancing need music, which can give children music infection and edification;

- Parents often play music (preferably in different genres);

- Parents often take their children to concerts or performances with musical content, or watch TV/videos about concerts;

- Parents are willing to communicate and discuss music, including commenting on music performances on TV, expressing their opinions on music, introducing musicians and styles, answering children's questions about music at the first time, and being able to take their children to explore the world of music.

- Parents can accompany their children to learn piano and music, and grow up together; this kind of companionship must be high-quality spiritual companionship, not simple pressure;

- There are certain music collections and ornaments (such as records, CDs, books, musical instruments, etc.) at home, so that children can observe the existence of music in the family;

- Scenes of musical activities within the family (e.g. family singing together, instrumental ensemble, etc.);

- At least one parent has made music a profession or a means of earning a living, or has devoted considerable spare time to music-related activities;

- Parents are in the "ecosystem" of music, and they can meet more people who have music as a career or are involved in music, so that their children can have a greater impact and provide resources for their children's long-term development in related music fields. This is closely related to the parents' occupation, workplace, social organization and hobbies.

In addition to "parents", the above-mentioned can also include elder family members who live together and have a relatively close relationship, such as grandfathers, grandmothers, grandparents, grandmothers, etc.

Some people ask, are the above conditions "necessary conditions" for children to learn piano and music?

The answer is no! Even if the parents and family do not have these conditions, the child can still learn piano and music, because the child already has enough musical talent and strong hobby and self-motivation.

However, it is also necessary to recognize the importance of the family environment, that is, when other conditions are equal, if a child comes from a "musical family", in addition to being influenced by congenital and early education, he is more likely to show talent, interest and ability in music at an early age, and is more likely to receive more guidance and support from his parents and family when it comes to long-term persistence and development.

Obviously, not all families, all parents, have these conditions, and the opposite may be true, most of the parents of piano children do not have these conditions. As a result, it is the "family" that can really come out of the music industry: that is, people whose parents/previous generation have been working in the music field or have considerable accumulation. People who are professionally engaged in music are more of an "inner circulation" of a specific demographic group. In fact, this trend exists in most arts-related industries and types of work. Parents from the social side often ignore or underestimate family factors, often due to a lack of understanding of music and the music ecosystem.

The above can be boiled down to: the most suitable person to learn the piano is actually a "musical family" - social groups outside the music world can also "enter the pit", but after full consideration, they must be cautious to "enter the pit", and they can enter and exit.

4) Whether parents and families can reasonably plan their children's piano education, "can enter and exit", and look at it rationally

Parents are often the driving force and decision-maker for their children's initial learning of the piano (they are determined to let their children learn the piano), they are the companions and urgers of their children's learning of the piano, and when their children encounter bottlenecks after learning the piano, parents are also important forces when considering whether to persevere.

When deciding whether or not to let their child learn the piano, parents should first consider the issues mentioned earlier in this article:

- Does your child like piano and music?

- Does the child have any natural endowments?

——Can parents give long-term high-quality companionship to their children's piano learning career?

——What resources do you need to learn piano well?

- What is the ultimate goal of letting children learn piano?

- Do parents have sufficient music education and accomplishment to avoid blind spots and misjudgments when making the above judgments?

——It is not enough to evaluate the "good" and "bad" of learning the piano, but also to consider whether to let children invest in learning the piano from a more macro and long-term perspective such as early childhood education, developing children's comprehensive quality and skills, and improving long-term competitiveness;

- At this time, you should see, in addition to piano/music, what hobbies does the child have, what skills do you need to master, and is learning the piano the only choice and the best choice for the child?

- If you decide to learn the piano, how do you balance learning the piano with other majors, hobbies, specialties and skills?

INTERVIEWER If we consider the competition for talent in the future era, can learning the piano provide children with the key skills they need to compete in the future?

——If the child's road to learning the piano is not smooth, after a certain amount of precipitation costs and early achievements, after two or three years, three or four years, four or five years later, can parents look at it rationally, avoid paternalism, and discuss the best path with their children (persistence vs withdrawal), without falling into the path dependence of precipitation costs?

Raise these questions, think about these questions, answer these questions, you can provide children with more reasonable and rational goals for learning the piano, plan reasonable investment and time plans, at the same time, it is very important that parents should see the possibility of failure at the beginning, reasonable planning of the "exit" plan - of course, this plan does not need to be told to the child from the beginning, so that the child is easily discouraged and difficult to persevere, but parents need to have this "tendon" from the beginning, to look at the child's learning rationally.

If parents have enough well-informed information to be able to look at all issues rationally and plan their children's piano education reasonably, then there is no problem in learning piano.

Today's parents are becoming more and more mature and can reasonably plan their children's piano education, so for many people, there is no problem of "entering the pit" and "insisting on not retreating from the pit". The more realistic problem is to assume that piano education has such and such benefits, especially music education itself is also very meaningful, and children can benefit for life. If you don't learn piano, what should your child learn?

This is a matter of opinion, different families have different views, and different children need to be "taught according to their aptitude". In the next part, we will explore what abilities children should focus on developing in order to adapt to the new era.

If the child is very suitable for learning the piano, and the parents can make a reasonable plan for the child's learning of the piano, then learning the piano can be included as part of the comprehensive quality education and ability training;

If the child is not really suitable for learning the piano, and the parents do not make a reasonable plan for the child's learning of the piano, then learning the piano may also be opposed to comprehensive quality education and ability training.

(To be continued)