4 Questions To Ask Yourself Before Enrolling Your Kid Into Music Lessons

My name is Kyle Shook, and I have been a piano teacher for seven years at Music Scene, and I have had over 100 students in my piano teaching career. I have seen many different types of parents and children come in and want to learn an instrument. I have seen many families invest in lessons for their child and it be a huge success, and their child develops not only as a musician, but as a person. I truly do believe music can help someone in more ways than one. In my opinion music has been a great stress reliever for myself. This investment a parent can make for their child to take music lessons is an important investment, and every parent should ask themselves these 4 questions before enrolling their kid into lessons.

1 – Does your kid have 15 minutes a day to practice their instrument for music lessons?

Music Lessons are great. With the right instruction and practice regime a student will accel at maximum potential. If a student has the right instruction with no practice regime, then they will not accel at their maximum potential. Seems obvious, but there are some instances when kids take lessons, and never practice. If this is the case it is probably not worth the investment.

2 – Is your kid old enough to start lessons?

Parents know the benefits of doing music lessons, and sometimes kids show an interest in music at an early age. Private lessons are offered generally for 7-year-olds and older. In the 7 – 10 age range we always recommend starting with piano. If your kid is younger than this (in most cases) private lessons would not be the wisest investment. A better investment may be a group music class or a beginning music class for pre-k. These are offered in most cities.

3 – Can you afford the cost of lessons and the costs of an instrument?

When a person signs up for lessons they get one on one time with an instructor that is a professional at teaching an instrument. They assign weekly assignments that will help enhance a person’s skills at the best rate they think is possible on their chosen instrument. This is only possible if the student has an instrument at home that they can practice on. All in short, a parent must invest in the lessons and the instrument itself, for it to be worth it.

4 – Are you willing to make a long-term commitment?

Music Lessons are paid on a month to month basis here at Music Scene, and usually payments are acquired in a short time frame. This does not mean that lessons should only be taken for three to four months then discontinued. It takes a lot of time and effort to get good at an instrument, and so for the investment to be worth it, a person must be patient and be willing to commit. With all this being said, this does not mean do not try an instrument because you must commit yourselves long term. The purpose of this point is to stress that one cannot expect to be great after a few months, and when this is not the case do not give up.