Musically Speaking

Reading through my journal, written more than 20 years ago, I find myself thinking about music education.

I always knew that I wanted to expose my kids to making music as well as to listening to music. All through homeschooling, I had on hand my old childhood piano along with a small assortment of other instruments, including a balalaika my beloved sister brought me from Russia, a sturdy set of rhythm instruments I bought from an educational supplies catalog, a recorder, and two guitars. With my children tagging along (and sometimes egging me on), I occasionally bought a new instrument to add to the mix: a couple of ocarinas, castanets, more recorders and drums. When Lindsey and Mindy were teens, one got a drum kit and the other an electric bass guitar.

As long as little kids have strings to pluck, drums to pound, and keys to plink-plunk, they will make music (or at least sounds!). However, research conducted since Maria and I started homeschooling has suggested that learning to make music—and by this I mean actual musical training, not just exposure here and there—helps improve intelligence and learning. My kids did have some formal musical training in the form of several years of piano lessons. Later, as a teen, Lindsey had drum lessons. We also continued with some informal self-teaching.

Another important aspect to musical exposure is modeling. Kids who grow up in an environment in which everybody makes music will usually quite naturally want to make music. In our case, the modeling has been at a higher level of sporadic enthusiasm than of dedication or proficiency. I've picked out songs I love on the piano and learned a few favorites by Bach and Pachelbel, and Jim has belted out “Solitary Man” and Simon and Garfunkel songs on the guitar—but we have both indulged our music-making in on-again-off-again fashion. Months of playing daily, then months of ignoring our instruments.

After quite a bit of exposure to music, plus some formal training and some parental modeling, how did this “all turn out”? Certainly my kids are not professional musicians or even dedicated amateurs, but they love music, and Mindy at least has copied my husband and me: she makes music, but sporadically, as an on-again-off-again hobby, on both piano and guitar.

How about Camille?

Camille took formal piano lessons and enjoyed playing from age 6 to 18. She added the Celtic harp to her music making at age 12, and continued to play it most of the way through high school. Obviously, once she went to college, Camille's music lessons and practice routines were interrupted, but she did continue to enjoy playing piano when she was home from college, during the summer. She received an electronic keyboard as a college graduation gift and was well positioned to play the rest of her life--until she was afflicted with Repetitive Strain Syndrome in her wrists. Since RSS is a chronic condition, she basically hasn't played since then.

So did Camille's parents waste their money on all those lessons? Did Camille waste her time?

I never feel that music training is wasted, even if someone ends up dropping a hobby and no longer plays the instrument. When we study music, we learn to listen to music better, and often to enjoy it more. We learn more about learning itself, about coordinating our hands and eyes and feet and brain. We learn to let go, explore, improvise. We learn to memorize, practice, persevere. And hopefully we enjoy the hours and years we do all that learning and playing music.