Here’s to all the moms and dads that enroll their kids in music lessons, and keep them in lessons, bringing them every week, even (and especially) when their kids don’t practice. THANK YOU! Your commitment to your child or teen and their development is awesome, and it will have a lifelong payout! We can’t stress enough how music lessons are SO much more than music. Yes, of course, we love music and music is beautiful, and fun, and challenging, and hard work, and wonder, and can bring so much joy—and those of us that teach love all those things! And of course we hope that every music student will experience all of those things and love it! But some don’t, and that’s OK.
It is also true that MANY music students don’t practice, and we know so many extremely capable musicians, professional musicians, musicians who play live and record—and are often even sought after for their expertise, that didn’t practice much or at all for several years even in their private lessons as students. Why are they so good now? Because while they may not have been practicing at home, consistent weekly lessons, just like consistently going to the gym (even if it were just once or twice a week), is still consistently working out for a bit.
Beyond that, most of those musicians, they reach a point someday where they want something out of music: maybe it is a really fun gig (Disneyland, a cruise ship, a trip overseas), maybe it is a college music program or scholarship, a military band, an orchestra! These things are simply not possible to achieve without some serious work. When the musician wants these things, they start practicing hard—and all the things they did and learned in those lessons you paid for, they start paying off big time. Because while they may not have practiced them every day, they were there in those lessons, they remember them, and they start coming back and honing them. And they will remember, and they will appreciate those lessons so much.
So moms and dads that put your kids in lessons, THANK YOU! Stay the course! Your kids are worth it!