Why Learn Music - Beginners Lessons on how to play Piano, Violin and Guitar in Middlesex, Harrow, Hillingdon, London

Learning to play an instrument is an important and rewarding aspect of a child’s life. Aside from the fact that the upper graded levels count towards valuable UCAS points for entry into higher education, it can influence a variety of aspects of your child’s development including confidence and expression of emotions. It is also very important that they enjoy what they are learning as it is through the love of playing that musicians are formed. We, at Active in Music, strive to ensure that all our pupils enjoy learning their instrument and being part of a musical group.

Enjoyment

All of the pupils learning an instrument with us love what they do and love what they play. Issues of lack of practice are rarely a problem as not only do pupils know that there is a performance at the end of each term, but teachers will not proceed with a piece of music if the child is not particularly fond of it. We spend a good deal of time concentrating on playing technique and do this in as interesting a way as possible. This is vital as it can be very frustrating for a child to try to play something that they like, but it remains unmanageable because their teacher has not been able to spend enough time developing the necessary technical skills.

A question that is very frequently on the lips of many parents is how fast their child is going to learn and how it will benefit them. The answer unfortunately can never be so straightforward. Children can only learn at their own pace. What can be said is that the more joy they gain from learning an instrument, which  to a large extent  depends on the teaching methods, who is teaching, what they are playing and what their aims are, the more likely it is that they will progress more satisfactorily. Many pupils of all ages studying with us have won cups and prizes for their playing at various festivals and performances; that is not because we expect them to win such prizes or in any way put pressure on them, rather it is simply that if they love what they do and enjoyment for what they are playing is evident, these extras may in due course follow naturally.

In short, we believe that every child should be given as fun and enjoyable an introduction as possible to their musical instrument and the whole musical learning process because boredom and lack of enjoyment as well as lack of aim can all have the effect of dissuading any child from progressing as well as they might. Once this has happened, it can be very difficult to convince a child to continue studying the instrument and all of the effort (and money invested in the lessons) may well come to nothing.

So it follows that being as selective as possible regarding the teacher, the lessons, the aims and possibilities for the child and the enjoyment potential is vital. This will also help to maintain a healthy balance for a pupil in that they will be less likely to see learning an instrument as a chore, which, in turn, would invariably become extra pressure.

Life Skills

The pride and success a child will feel from knowing that they have spent time learning a piece to play to their friends and relatives cannot be over-emphasised. Our methods of teaching together with the specially constructed group taught curriculum and emphasis on performance means that pupils will be able to develop an extensive range of essential life skills including, but not limited to, cooperation, teamwork, communication, motivation, self esteem and confidence building, goal setting and positive thinking.

For further reading, please CLICK HERE for some articles about the benefits of learning music.