The Importance of Starting Out Right

The Importance of Starting Out Right We get the call often, "My child knows how to play a little song they figured out on the piano, guitar, etc." What do I do next? It's a great sign of interest and talent when kids start plunking out songs on their own. It's great ear training but now's the time to get started the right way. Unfortunately, what happens sometimes is that the interest and natural ability is not professionally guided until they have already developed many bad learning habits. Music is like math. You may be drawn to numbers and have a natural talent with them but that alone will not take you very far. You need to continue to build upon your talents with professional and sequential instruction. When children play "by ear" for too long they get a satisfaction by figuring out the latest song on the radio but sometimes that's as far as it goes and they are limiting their future repertoire to potentially one of two songs. They have not learned the building blocks that will open up the entire musical world to them. Mainly, notation. Starting at the age of 2, children begin to recognize and put meaning to symbols. This is prime time to introduce professional instruction and guided experimentation utilizing musical symbols and note reading. Now, we are not saying to discourage their ear training efforts - far from it! Any quality educational program will have a healthy emphasis on ear training but it will be hand-in-hand with those important reading building blocks. For more info on professional music instruction in your own home - contact LNM today! Happy Practicing! The Music Momma