Learning to play an instrument well is hard. Full stop. There’s no “but” in that statement. Most children who start the guitar aren’t going to become Eric Clapton; most children who learn to play the cello aren’t going to become Yo-Yo Ma. The amount of time and energy it takes to become great is daunting—tens of thousands of hours. But that’s not why you send your kids into piano lessons; you send them for the discipline. Unlike just about any other subject your child will ever study, the experience of progressing from a fumbled middle C on the piano to playing “Fur Elise” with some competence will teach your child the value of perseverance like nothing else. Everything yields to practice. That is the backbone of our instrument program. The greats became great because they worked at it. Whatever “it” is, “it” takes practice. Music is its own reward, yes, but learning how to make music will pay dividends in every endeavor your child will ever undertake.
What They Learn in Small Group Instrument Classes:
- How to read music
- How to interpret and play notated rhythmic patterns
- How to understand time signatures
- How to play chords
- How to create good tone
- How to accompany themselves or other musicians
- How to keep a beat
- How to play together in a group
- How to work hard to learn a skill over time
- Teamwork