Most parents attempt to introduce their children to many different activities that will teach them new skills and make them happy. These activities can include sports, chess, art classes, and more. Of course, music lessons are also a popular activity – but how long does it take a child to truly learn to play a musical instrument?
There are a multitude of fun activities for kids in NYC which allow them to feel accomplishment and excitement and have fun for a short time. Many activities you may not return to often, or even a second time. For example, laser tag is great fun and poses unique challenges to each player – but most people do not do it more than once or twice in their life!
Music lessons not like laser tag or other short term activities. That’s not to say that a child (or an adult for that matter) won’t feel immensely happy from being able to play a little song or improvise on their very first lesson! The truth is that music lessons can be very exciting, but truly getting the benefit from them requires a commitment of ongoing lessons with a competent teacher – and practicing at home.
It’s important to understand that any meaningful results s acquired from taking piano, violin, guitar, or voice lessons are only arrived to when the student dedicates themselves for a long period of time. So… how long is that?
How long a child should take music lessons depends the goals for that particular student!
If you want playing a musical instrument to become an integral part of your child’s life, and in fact, your child’s personality, then they can take music lessons their entire life – as a child, as a college student, as a young adult, and as an older adult. Our music school in NYC has many students who are doing just that. Some interruptions are inevitable, and in fact it’s OK to take breaks for some months and even years!
People who truly love making music always come back to working with professional musicians and teachers simply because the progress in learning new music is 10 times faster with a professional music teacher than without one. The music repertoire is limitless: with piano, for example, there are so many pieces written that it would be impossible to learn all of them in one lifetime!
If you want your child to get the basic chops of a musical instrument, so they are able to figure things out on their own throughout life, the child should take music lessons for a couple of years at the very least.
Learning to read music, chord symbols, and other basics of music theory along with developing the physical skills to play an instrument takes a little bit of time and a lot of determination. The body coordination and proper technique to be learned is something that only a great music teacher can teach.
While we welcome any new technologies that help us make music, neither a child nor an adult can learn how to play a musical instrument on their own by watching online tutorials. This will not work. So be ready to enroll your child for at least two years if you expect them to have a basic understanding of a musical instrument.
“Is there anything I can do in a shorter time?” you might ask. Yes!
Sometimes our music school has students who have a very specific goal. Examples of short term goals for taking music lessons include: to play a song at a wedding or to learn how to play the chords for a sound production project. In these cases it is possible to take an intensive course with the teacher and get to your goal from somewhere between 4 and 12 lessons.
In any of the above cases, taking music lessons requires a lot of time commitment. Despite this, encouraging your child to learn how to play an instrument is a huge investment in their life. It doesn’t come easily and the life skills learned, combined with the creativity will be something that will benefit them for life!
If you decide to enroll your child in music lessons, be prepared for the time commitment…. and also be ready for your child to be thankful to you their whole life!