There was an article in the New York Times titled “Is Music the Key to Success?” I encourage each of you to read it, Do you believe there is a connection?
This fits right in with our discussion on the Non-Musical Benefits of music study–providing us with prominent successful examples of playing an instrument.
Read More...I received this email from another mom (who happens to be my mom…) and thought it was particularly appropriate with our recital coming up on Saturday:
In today’s fast-paced and over-wired world of Iphones, Ipads, computers, video games, etc. etc. we have become a society with very short attention spans. In addition we have become a society with heads buried in electronic devices, giving half attention or none at all to what is being said or to what is going on in real time in the real world.
Music education gives us as parents an opportunity to combat both of these problems. We want something more for our children and participation in music lessons as well as music appreciation can lead us in a better direction. We turn away from electronics when we practice the violin or piano. We turn away when we participate in group lessons and recitals. We sit still. We let the music (at every level) speak to us and fill us with delight. If children play with Ipads or other electronic gadgets (because parents think it is keeping them quiet and still) during recitals they are missing the opportunity to grow and mature. If parents overbook family activities so that it is necessary to rush in at the last minute or even worse, late, or leave right after their child performs, again they are missing the opportunity to grow and mature.
We must slow down. It is important for our children and it is important for us.
So we can add to our list:
I want to share with you two of the parent responses I received to my question about the non-musical benefits of taking music lessons. Thanks for your replies!
Stephanie said:
“I think the non-musical benefits include learning to concentrate, gaining confidence, appreciating incremental success, developing respect for others and their talent.
I also think there are many benefits to parents besides listening to great music. Along the way, I have gained some really valuable parenting perspective. The band teacher at the middle school is particularly magical and he stressed how much kids need praise for what they get right. He has some sort of formula for a praise to criticism ratio that has been good for me to remember along the way. He is good to remind parents about just how hard it is to learn to play an instrument, not that it’s not worth the effort, but that it is effort. Music has helped me push my kids in ways that I thought were good, like “just learn the first line today,” rather than letting them abandon a piece. I often remind them at the end that what once seemed impossible is now totally playable.”
Libby said:
“I think there’s a huge benefit in having to practice something over and over as a means to perfection (see Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers). I also think that the repetition required to get a piece performance-ready is a built-in failure/reward system. One of the things that is less and less available to children is the opportunity to fail at something over and over and the intertwined ability to learn from the failure. Playing a piece beautifully requires a lot of playing it less than beautifully and persisting until it gets better. Extrapolate that out to, say, medical research, and someone who learned persistence in the face of failure or only partial success is going to be better prepared to fine-tune a pump for implantation, or more likely to conduct more rigorous studies of a new medication.
We talk a lot about wanting our children to succeed. I’d rather have mine fail, hard as it is for all of us when that happens. If they learn that failure isn’t final, that picking up and starting over is always an option, that they will most likely fail repeatedly at any skill before getting it right, they’re going to be more resilient and resourceful adults, people who have the confidence that they can do hard things.”
Things to add to our list would be:
I received some great responses back to my Parent Education question from last week about the non-musical benefits of taking music lessons. I’ll be sharing some of those next week but this week I wanted to give you my list. Read through and see if you agree/ disagree or if you can think of additional things that should be added.
If you think of more, please tell me and we’ll add them to the list.
