Music Journey with my 3-year-old daughter

Keeping motivation is probably the biggest challenge at any age for learning an instrument. How many people do you know who started lear ing an instrument in childhood but never practiced and eventually gave up? My guess is that is the vast majority of all kids - which is why music sellers make far more money selling beginners books than any other kind!

We are hitting a similar wall. After refusing to play at all my 3.8 year started doing really well and I was amazed by her progress. But after Christmas her motivation also took a dip. It's not just piano - she's not interested in anything much right now. Maths has also taken a dive! I've been getting super frustrated although trying hard not to show it. But I've elected to take a couple of weeks break from everything and then slowly build back up.

There are a few things I have been mulling over and trying to work out how to take things forwards.

1. I will try to refresh her reward system. We use a set of 10 card pictures that we stick on a reward chart. She likes to get 2 at a time so I usually expect her to play something twice (e.g R and then RH) before I give the reward. Usually if I think she's not trying then I will only give one and that used to be enough to make her focus again). When we get to 10 then she can choose - a small chocolate, a small present from 'Hellene's present bag' or she can save up towards something specific (she wanted a snow White costume for a party so we agreed if she got a full chart for 3 days she could have one). The current pictures we use are cupcakes - I think she's bored of these so I've just printed out some new ones bases on her current obsession - lollipops!

You could ask your daughter what she would like as a reward, choose the pictures together etc.

2. Have you thought about playing yourself? Sometimes the biggest motivator is watching mummy or daddy play. My daughter mentioned that she hadn't seen me play for a long time - she thought I wasn't playing at all but actually I was playing after she was in bed. But maybe this is part of the problem. I think it means a lot to kids to see parents making music and learning like them. The other benefit to learning is that your realise how hard it is to play day in and day out. There are days that I can't face playing, days that I feel I'm going backwards, days where I hate the piano and still more days where I love playing and it all comes together. But remembering that these ups and downs are a normal part of learning is really important. Learning an instrument is about playing the long game - it is definitely not a short term issue and I don't think progress goes in a straight line.

So my goal is to play more when my kids can see and hear me.

3. I need to get better at understanding and following my kids lead when it comes to learning. I think emotionally she just cannot handle continued progression and stretching herself with learning new things all the time. I think she has times when she's really ready to learn and others when she just needs to feel safe and competent and well within the comfort zone. At these times it's best to avoid trying to push too hard and maybe even drop back a step tom then build up once more. I think partly we hit a wall as she had started to play more with both hands and was finding it difficult. I don't think I recognised this quite enough and should have carried on with smaller steps- just a few notes on P is enough for her.

So I have agreed that we won't play P for a while and then only very small steps. I need to be better at changing the goals each practice session depending on her mood and ability that day.

For older kids you can probably be tougher but for a sensitive young child it's important for them to feel continued success. And don't forget that young children love repetition and can really enjoy returning to play something they find easy.

Just about the issue of presentation - I tried my DD on presentation 3 out of interest yesterday when playing songs that she knows well and has almost memorised to make it easier. She did really great and had no problem at all the it. I was very surprised at first, but I think it must come from using Little Musician with the soft Mozart icons. Amazingly, when playing nursery rhymes primer for sight reading she did better on 4 than on 2 (still lots of mistakes but much less frustration and less wild guessing). So I suggest just try and see how it goes. For learning a new song I would always go back to 1 though.

Ok I've run out of ideas. At least I did think of something else but ive forgotten what it was! I will post again if I remember!

Oh yes - I also think half an hour is a long time to be playing, especially if not focussed and not enjoying the experience. I think better to aim for much less - a shorter session that is well within her reach.

The way our days work it is almost impossible to get to the piano more than once a day, so I sometimes have to have a piano plus activity session, especially if she's in a wriggly mood.

We play one short piece on the piano and then jump off the chair and run around the room, do star jumps, roll along the floor, spin around in the desk chair, you name it, and then go back and play something else. So this might take half an hour but there is very little time sitting squirming on the piano stool.

One final thing, I was reading something about how children are constantly being told how to do things 'right' and can get fed up with the adults always seeming to know it all. So letting the child do whatever they want to with the piano (provided not smashing or damaging it!) is also important for them to learn their own ideas. I was amazed to hear my DD playing the first few sections of Hanon 1 exercise today - it was her own choice! That was the only piano we did but I was pleased that it was on her own terms. I later played myself and she said she felt too tired to play. I didn't blame her - we were all up in the night with her younger brother's teeth coming through!! But she happily watched me practice and did some colouring. I'm sure she must learn something about persistence and practice this way.

Thank you so much for all the wonderful ideas and words of encouragement. I have been thinking hard and try to see how things can be done differently to make it work.

Mrs. Post: Thank you for sharing how your reward system works. It is really interesting to learn how you motivate little ones with financial rewards. I think it is a great system, and I will probably start it when she is a bit older.

Manda: It is a great idea to always turn the system on and make it available. I will try that and perhaps move it to a better location.

Izp11: Thank you for sharing your experience with me. Yes. It is very important to think in their shoes in order to make things work.

Hellene: Yes I have the stickers on Do, Fa, and Sol. I like how you compare playing piano with teeth brushing. By the way, I started playing note duration with her. I notice that once I have 3 wrong ones the game will stop and I cannot play anymore unless I hit ctl-x to exit and then reload. When I look at the introduction to the game on the website, it seems that is not supposed to be the case. How can I fix it please?

I agree that half an hour is too long. Sometimes we decided to earn some goodies. When she actually starts to play, she would just press every key and then look away and play it all wrong. Or she would jump around and talk with me to procrastinate. So when I said we should stop there, she begs me to continue so she can earn the goodies but then the same thing happened all over again. I did not expect her to play really for a long time, but the way things go, she turns a five minute practise into a 45 minutes ordeal often. I was hoping to let her play 2-3 songs each time, with R and L and P 3 times for each song. It worked well in December when she was earning for the advent calendar chocolate but not anymore. I guess I should refresh the reward system and adjust my expectations. Recently I am adding more practise without actually playing a song like finger exercises and singing the solfege sequence in order to add more variety to her practise. Hope it will start working again soon.


Marrtai