Piano Lessons - How Long Until My Child Is Playing Classical Music?

Piano Lessons - How Long Until My Child Is Playing Classical Music

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Piano lessons always seem to bring up the same question from parents: "How long until my child is playing classical music?"

What I find is that many people who are not musicians have an idea that any child can be put in two years of piano lessons and suddenly playing something like a Mozart piano concerto. It's as though years of fascination with the prodigies in TV commercials and YouTube has made people think somehow every five-year-old "should" be able to do the same, particularly THEIR five-year-old. The assumption that kids can be stuck in two years of lessons and automatically pop out playing adult-level classical music is dangerously inaccurate and causes much undo and unfair pressure on kids.

I've taught a few child prodigies and I know how fast they learn. However, the average piano lesson student is not going to achieve the same and it's important for parents to know this. What happens when the average student signs up for piano lessons is they have to learn to play with one hand and then eventually two. To play something that is actual "classical music" written two hundred years ago by a professional composer who was also a master musician and writing for adults takes far more work than most people realize. It may take the average student between three and four years of piano lessons before they can even play easy classical music.

What I mean by "easy classical music" is the music that many composers during the 18th and 19th century wrote specifically for their students. Because of the expense of the lessons, most students were adults. Once in a while, one of these composers did teach a child, and those "children's pieces" are just about the only thing written specifically for kids in the classical cannon. However, most of those kids were their students who were the most able, so the music written for them was beyond the level of the average player and written for the listening habits they had back then.

A young child today attempting to learn one of those pieces who has listened to what's popular now will have no background of listening to draw from. When we put those classical pieces against a pop tune or a christmas carol of today, the classical piece ends up sounding extremely complex. Understand that for a child, playing unfamiliar music is particularly challenging because they have no reference to draw from, and music that's complex is even more difficult for them. Classical music is also far more difficult for most people to learn because of the amount of reading and technical skill required to do it.

If you are interested in your student playing classical music like Mozart, Bach or Beethoven that you've heard before, understand it may be a few years of lessons before your child gets to the point where they can do that well. Remember that in their first year they are still learning to play competently with two hands and that it will take working up to the complexity of classical music.

When this whole scenario becomes interesting for me as the teacher is when I encounter parents who took "six months of lessons as a kid." Six months of lessons does not make someone an experienced player. I'm always amazed that the parents who took that six months of lessons and did not achieve playing classical music somehow expect their child to be able to do so. Yet, one mother questioned me about this and said "my daughters should be playing Mozart by now." No, they shouldn't, and six months of lessons thirty years ago certainly did not make her an informed player! The parent had no idea what it actually takes to play classical music because she had never done it. She played the little kids songs with one hand, and then two, just like her kids. However, her perception of what her kids "should" be doing was wildly inaccurate and an unfair expectation to place on an eight and ten-year-old. It was then that I learned that this issue needed to be addressed with parents so they could have an understanding of how fast the average player progresses.

If you have questions about this, contact me through my website at http://anaheimpiano.com and I'd be happy to give you some assistance that addresses the players in your house. There's not one solution that works for everyone, so I'd be happy to address any individual questions you may have.

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