Put an instrument in their hands…
2023 The Year of Song and Verse №6
For Matios
Piano lessons are a cure for hubris. ~ Ben Ketter
Weighted keys, Matios, give the children weighted keys… ~Ernest Boehm
Roger Scruton critique of pop music has so merits and demerit but overall he is on the right track about serious music. Yet his point about putting an instrument into young (and old people like myself ) hands will fundamentally improve their perspective and understanding of music.
Scruton is talking about the idea that there is serious music and how to get there. I do believe that exposure to music of high caliber is very important to being an educated, music is important to culture and ones very essence. Scruton may come down hard on pops songs, but there was a time Mozart Magic flute, Verdi Operas and Ellington's Satin Doll were consider popular. I have a deep affection for Johnny Cash and Rolling Stone Songs. So while I will not say pops songs are a tyranny, I will say that they should not be the only music we listen too.
Scruton comes to a point in the discussion that range in my mind, if you want children to discern music, on needs to put an instrument in their hands. From my own experience this is transformative, for in the passive roll of a listener you are consuming and this can be done with little thought to what one is consuming (or with a lot of thought). But when you start producing music one begins to understand the effort an complexity of music with a fresh pair of ears.
An instrument also attracts musicians and teachers a new set of musical peers. Unlike other arts I find musicians much more open to helping and sharing than other artist. Musicians are very open an collaborative and teacher of music are willing to put up with musical progression and failure to a level that amazes me. An instrument is a key to a group of peers that love music, that will challenge taste.
Playing an instrument makes one more discerning and gives one a serious approach to music. As well one begins to have sympathy for imperfections in music. This forgiveness makes myself more open to seeing people at different levels of experience.
You meet people with repertory, music personal enough to spend time on mastering. Music that has the merit of skin in the game, music which one will spend hours with to play well for a much shorter period of time. You hear the recommendation from those who have love affairs with pieces.
Some advice I would give.
Those who say reading music is of no value and that written music cannot fully communicate musical ideas are basically illiterates. Reading music is not hard, if fact reading music is the least troublesome aspect of music, physically getting your hands and lips to do what you want them to do is much harder. What's on the page can be played in different ways just as an actor can play a part differently but what you start with and what the composer wants to communicate is on that page. When you put an instrument in someone's hands reading music should also be part of that experience. I have met serval play by ear prodigies, that are abject mediocre players.
Practice should be regular, daily and of effective duration as an adult I have to practice 1–2 hours a day to advance. Children need to move up to an hour a day pretty quickly and even more as they hit plateaus. There is no substitute for practice, there are rarely short cuts. I find that for piano, the traditional counting it out, hands separate well then hands together, and painfully slow as you progress is the way of things.
I am taking my kids to a lot of concerts, not very much pop music, they both play and one sings. It is like taking a well behaved child to a nice dinner and treating them as an adult, it builds a lot of confidence to treat them like they are concert ready.
I FIRMLY BELIEVE IN CONCERT DRESS. I don’t go to shows as a slob even when being casual I will not dress too down. I have oportunites to talk to more musicians, they tend to talk to those dressed up and taking them seriously. As well the benefits of taking yourself seriously then taking the music seriously is a virtuous cycle. Dressing up also sets the expectation of behavior in children, dress up and be ready to act grown up.
Lastly there is one tyranny of music which I firmly believe needs to be confronted. Please do not torture yourself on cheap instruments that sound poorly. You will spend hours on end with them. I have a good used piano I did not break the bank and it was a huge improvement from our first “free” piano. Violins and Cello rentals are the worst culprits at the introductory level. Rentals often are more expensive then buying an instrument if the child is going to give it a year. Plus the rent to own model often is overpaying for low trade in value or direct purchase of a sub pare instrument. We have at least 4 hours of music in our house a day a bad piano is torture. Also it is worth maintaining an instrument of high quality take them if for maintenance and get pianos tuned.
Disclaimer I do not profit financially from this article.