Saturday 1 January 2011

Eeeek! First Post

My piano-learning son is the last of my three children and I'm trying to get this one right. Despite twenty-one years of child rearing I've yet to discover what 'right' is exactly, but I have a theory that if you can give your child skills in another language, a sport and some musical ability by the time they break free of your clutches, you will at least have tried to do a good job. This is where the piano lessons come in.

I had a friend who told me about Suzuki musicianship, where the child starts to learn from an early age and as my background is in language teaching this made a lot of sense to me. There are lots of advantages to starting young. As I see it, the younger the brain the easier it is for it to learn something, the habit of practice can be set up so that the child can't remember a time that they didn't do it and so will (hopefully!) put up less of a fuss, and the earlier the child starts the greater their achievement at a young age. A sense of achievement is so important to us all and children are no different. Plus, the child is further along the road to 10,000 hours of meaningful practice. I will write more on this later, but it is interesting that finally research is catching up with Suzuki's theory that talent is present in every child, and that the only thing that separates the ordinary child from the prodigy is practice.

Hmmm......I'm starting to sound like a pushy mum who needs her little darling to be the best in everything. Not so. Like most parents, I'm trying to give my son as many options as I can. If he gives up at age 15, that's fine, that'll be his choice. It won't change the fact that he will have gained tremendously from the experience.

So, at the grand age of four we embarked on this journey together. He was getting a little ancient for Suzuki method by then (yes, really!) but we seem to be doing okay. It's been a wonderful and traumatic experience. At times I have been filled with joy, at other times I've been weeping over my computer in the early hours of the morning.

I will post more on the last three years as these blogs progress, as well as record our current progress, our experiences, and our reactions, and hopefully too post useful information.

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