Kids and Learning Music: Could It Get Any Worse?

Getting kids to play and then practice musical instruments, whether it's piano, guitar or the trombone, may be one of the most painful processes parents go through with their child's education. It seems like a non-stop battle

Why Go Through the Pain?

It can be painful getting our kids to participate or practice in music education. I will just add at this point, I've never met an adult who regrets learning an instrument - even when pushed into it. I've heard a lot tell me they wished their parents had pushed them into it. You can even find the discussion on forums and it's overwhelmingly the wish that they had been motivated/pushed to learn.

I was the younger of two brothers, and my parents experimented with my brother. They had him take piano lessons, and he became disinterested and wanted to quit, so they wouldn't let me have them. I learned to play by chords on my own in college, and even though that ability to improvise and play without music tends to be limiting factor now, I play on my own and in bands all the time. I can barely play some hymns, and the ones I do I have cheated by analyzing them and writing the chords in my hymnal. Even though I read music quite fluently (I have played trombone in some serious orchestras), reading piano music and having my two hands do what it says is the best way to slow my playing down.

My parents did let me be in band at 6th grade, and I've played trombone ever since. I have great respect for my parents having to listen to my playing (I understand as I taught elementary band for 5 years). My grandfather, who lived about 500 feet away could hear me as well. He would talk about me learning the Marine's Hymn, slowly and repeatedly. While it's nowhere near a profession, I play and have played in bands over the years, and have even been on some albums. I've never regretted playing a minute, and constantly have people tell me they wished they played.

With our children, we didn't really give options. Just like reading - which my wife and I did regularly. It was just something we did, so it was almost an expectation. My wife or I would play in community bands here and there, and my wife plays piano for church, so the kids grew up with it. I think they were quite old when they discovered that not everyone played instruments. With the exception on my autistic son, who only played violin for two years, all of my kids played through high school and generally still play. Only my oldest learned piano while younger. My oldest son started and learned to play basically just before his mission (he was bribed/rewarded for each hymn he learned before he left). It turned out quite useful as every place he served had no pianist, so he played constantly on his mission - which honed his skills even more. When he came home, and joined the USAF, he ended up being called as the ward accompanist for sacrament meetings (he played piano rather than organ). He recently called me from his deployment in Afghanistan for advice on buying electronic drums for the base chapel at the NATO Joint Task Force Base in Kabul (You never know when knowing music will come in handy and help people around you). Several of the others later picked up piano (chords like me) and guitar later.

My point for this long post, is that we, as parents, have a major impact on whether our kids will learn music. We don't allow our kids to quit English, history or math, so why is music different? More importantly, it's one of the few, and most effective tools we have to teach children about delayed gratification. You can't cheat at music. If you don't practice, you don't play well. Period. Quick take-aways for why:

1. The world really does need more trained musicians. Whether it is playing piano or organ for church, or playing guitar around a campfire, there are fewer and fewer people learning music. Not only does that limit the future world out children inherent from an artistic standpoint, it lowers the quality of music we appreciate as a society. Read this for some evidence.
2. Learning music is one of the best examples of how work generates results. You can't cheat at music. If you don't work, you don't get results. There are other examples, such as sports, but music is very evident immediately and at very young ages.

Tips for kids in music

As to motivation, it will come and go. There were years in school where I rarely practiced outside of band. One of the most important drivers was our band directors in school treated practice like homework. We had to turn in practice slips signed by us and our parents every week, and it was half our grade. That helps remind kids that it is an academic subject.

• One thing is seeing exciting performances. That's a big motivator.
• Of course, letting our kids pick the instrument is a key - although my personal thought is every child should learn the piano at least to a basic level. I picked trombone because I fell madly in love with a girl playing trombone in my brother's beginning band concert. I never saw her again, but I still play the trombone.
• Taking a cue from my band directors, letting kids set their own schedule (maybe with some help) can help with practice some - they get to control that. Your child can make the schedule, and then it's easier for the parent to enforce it. Rewards aren't a bad thing either.
• Private lessons have a huge impact. One - school teachers really can't individually teach all their students. Two - it gives someone else besides the parents to push the student. I was teaching a young girl trumpet, and after several months of no progress because she wasn't practicing, I had a non-judgmental chat about the fact she was wasting her parents money by not practicing. In her case, that was enough to motivator, and in 3 months of practicing and expected progress, this fifth grader ended up playing in their 8th grade band. Sometimes another adult that's not a family member or school teacher can make a huge difference.
• Of course, how we respond to our kids practice has a big impact on their motivation. I've known parents to send their kids outside to practice because they didn't want to hear it. That's a pretty big demotivator.
• Practice can be very boring, with no apparent benefit, which is why kids don't want to do it. Many of the elementary books now have accompaniment CDs so kids can play along with an interesting accompaniment. It can also help them to hear their intonation. As they get older, Music Minus One solos (prerecorded accompaniment - either piano or band) can make practice interesting. Some even have computer play alongs that will rate the kid's playing. You can treat them like a video game to see if they can get better scores.

There are good websites with ideas that I've shared with students I give lessons to ov er the years. Here's a couple I like:

https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2012/06/18/155282684/getting-kids-to-practice-music-without-tears-or-tantrums

https://takelessons.com/blog/motivate-your-child-to-practice-music-z15

The Great Wall is not an Immigration or Border Security Plan

  The current impasse over the Federal budget over the border wall has turned into a stalemate with no possible compromise that doesn't compund the issue. The only compromise he is willing to accept is to throw other bills in to increase the spending, exacerbating the problem. The public argument seems to be either border security or open borders, which is a complete misstatement of the debate.
  There seems to be an interpretation by Trump supporters that the Wall is more than a Wall, but represents immigration reform. There's no legitimate reason to make that suggestion. President Trump has been very clear that his plan is for a wall of concrete or steel and that national security depends on it. Of course, what he terms national security is something that has essentially been happening for tears and his solution will take years to complete - aside from the cost. And ultimately, includes no hint of any type of border protection or immigration reform beyond his wall.
  On the other side, the Democratic leadership have declared a wall immoral and "not who we are as a people." That is definitely a line of thinkinmg that can be argued for and against, but the utlimate point is that it is both costly and ineffective. There's no suggestion about open borders.
  The problem is that no one really wants an actual plan. Not politicians or people if they really get down to what it means. Without recognizing that the discussion can't go anywhere. The US economy has relied on an exploited underclass since the beginning, but particularly since the transition to the industrial age, and even more so now in the digital age.  I can go into that further, but essentially, the Mexican workers slowly replaced slavery after emancipation (Chinese slaves were essential for the development of the railroad). Today our food production is only available so cheap because we don't have to pay real wages or benefits to those who are illegally here. If they complain or organize, we can get them deported. As much as I didn't care for John McCain, he was right on when he said Americans aren't willing to go to Yuma to pick lettuce. As automated as farming has become, it still relies heavily on back breaking manual labor.
  Any reasonable discussion on illegal immigration has to have this understanding. Instead, it is ignored and focus is placed elsewhere. No matter how much I treat the symptoms, if we ignore the cancer, it doesn't go away.
  Having said that, it's important to define the issues that are the real problems and address each to create a comprehensive plan. The first and biggest issue with illegal immigration is the access to welfare benefits and services. That goes beyond the illegals, but illegals are an easy target for people's frustration with the welfare state we find ourselves in. That's pretty easy to address if we want to - through positive identification. Don't allow services to be given without positive IDs.
  That's the second item - positive IDs. Currently illegals use forged identification - stolen social security numbers primarily - to create false IDs. US banks and the IRS are fully aware and complicit in this. They become aware very quickly when a duplicate SSN is being used, and just assign an additional code to separate the accounts (such as nnn-nn-nnnn-a or -b). If you were to accidentally get bank mail from your ID to an account you don't recognize, the bank will refuse to give you information on that account as they know it's someone else's. This happens quite often. Of course, the IRS knows because they get payroll taxes that they know will not get returned in a tax return - it's free, unaccountable money for them. Positive ideas have to be 100% accounted for and electronically traceable.
  That leads to the third item - to use positive IDs, you have to enable people to have them and make using them easier/better than not having them. One way is with a reasonable guest worker program. A large portion of illegals just want to be able to work and take care of their families. They don't want to immigrate to the US, they want to work. They may come for a year or two, send the money home, and then go home for a year or two. then repeat the cycle. There's really nothing wrong with this. US citizens to to other countries to work all the time. But today, there is no guest worker program, and it's unreasonably expensive to get a green card, and it put's you at the mercy of a lot of unscrupulous parties. The guest worker program would of course include positive IDs and time-based VISAs.
  SO the next item - Time-based VISAs. Most (more than 50%) illegal immigrant came legally, but overstayed their Visa. There's no reason for that in this era of computers. A Visa is time-based, and when the time is up, it is flagged and if the person has not been granted an extension, they get a visit from law enforcement. Additionally, many Visa overstays are holding jobs, etc that include payroll taxes, etc. Something that requires their IDs. and so could be easily identified and tracked. Their bank accounts are tracked. Illegally overstaying a VISA is a crime, and so due process would allow their payroll and bank accounts to be blocked pursuant to a hearing.
  No so far, that takes care of the non-criminally motivated illegal immigration (recognizing that all illegal immigration is criminal - but it is different than criminally motivated issues such as drug or human smuggling). The criminally-motivated illegal border crossing (it's is not really immigration based at all) has different requirements that need to be addressed. FYI, taking care of the non-criminally motivated opens up law enforcement to deal with crimes that have actual victims.
  One problem is the US's psychotic drug program and the "War on Drugs." We treat users as victims and put our efforts into trying to stop sales. That's backwards and ignores the most basic economic rules we know. You can never stop demand by stopping supply. In the US, there is a strong market demand for drugs to abuse. In conjunction, we have strong laws against supplying that demand - which greatly magnifies the risk, and thus the reward. The drug war brought us the cartels - the crime syndicates focused primarily on meeting the demand. As the risk grows, the cost gets higher increasing the reword.  Worse, we are legalizing some drugs (marijuana for recreational use) while still prosecuting people for producing it. The demand for marijuana is far outpacing the production putting is in the never ending cycle. Ignoring the demand (users) creates the imbalance that actually encourages the supply.
  As an FYI, anyone who uses illegal drugs or marijuana is contributing to drug crime and the cartels. Take responsibility.
  The way around it is to decriminalize drugs themselves contribute to the crime in the US. I don't say legalize, because the government doesn't really have the right to criminalize them (the libertarian in me speaking). Ultimately, if someone want's to sit in their room all day doing drugs until they kill themselves and don't hurt anyone else - that's their call.
  On that vein, punishments for being under the influence should be much greater. You get a DUI and kill someone, you pretty much get a death penalty. Any public infractions while DUI = jail time. Removing demand is the only way to cutting demand. Less demand = no reason for cartels to function.
  Of course, just as there are non-discussed benefits of illegal immigration, there are even greater benefits to the drug war and continued drug abuse. Hugh amounts of federal budget - and power - are associated with the illicit drug trade and the war on it.
  Take are of these, and it eliminates virtually all the reasons for illegal immigration and border crossing. And none of it carries the cost an ineffective wall would carry. It would also have the benefit of eliminating billions of federal spending. But, it would also increase the individual costs as without the exploited worker, the cost of food will go up substantially - taking more of people's time or resources.
  Combine this with a reasonable fence, such as the amended SecureFence bill provisions, and the Border Patrol can keep up with what's left and even reasonably manage the border.
  So here you go - a comprehensive plan that actually addresses the issues. Here's the short list.

1 - No welfare/services without positive ID
2 - Positive IDs
3 - Guest Worker program
4 - Time-based Visa's that are tracked with overstays identified - with payroll and bank accounts frozen.
6 - Decriminalize of drugs - including production
7 - High prosecutions for effects from drug abuse (driving, etc) rather than the mere existence of drugs.

  But because of the financial and power implications, it is likely to never get implemented, and we will be fighting budgets over a wall for years to come.