Essay: Stacking The Deck (How To Create The Best Possible Environment For Learning The Guitar)

The parents of students often ask me what they can do to help their children get the most out of their guitar lessons. Here are a few pointers.

Realize Children Are Not Adults

Children are experience-oriented and exploration-oriented creatures. That's how they're made. Their big goals in life are to see things, listen to things, touch and taste things, and try things. For nearly all children, music is an enrichment activity and not an obsession or a future career. Later, as a child enters the teen years, he or she may develop a competitive streak or decide to become a professional musician as an adult. But for a small child to be that driven is rare.

Have expectations of the child that are appropriate to his or her age, level of development, and attitude toward the music. Expecting a ten-year-old to manage his or her own practice time, to work on exercises and scales for hours every week, or to take the initiative when scheduling lessons, is completely unrealistic. There are a very few children whose will to play the guitar is so strong that it will overcome whatever obstacles are in the way, and if your child is guitar obsessed you'll probably notice. If your child is not guitar obsessed, that's OK too, just don't expect him or her to act like an aspiring pro.

The love of performance is not characteristic of children between the ages of twelve and sixteen. Regardless of any stereotypes you might have of adolescent and teenaged girls, not every young adult relishes negative attention or exposure to criticism. I believe that forcing a reluctant child into performance or competition is a form of abuse, especially if he or she is not used to playing with, or in front of, other people.

Provide A Convenient Space For Practice

The best room for practice is the one in which the student spends the most time, provided there are no other distractions. That way, the student will see the guitar and sometimes pick it up and play with it on impulse. In order for this to work, the guitar must be set up and ready to go, possibly in a stand. Having to pack the guitar up and unpack it deters the student from practicing. There's something to the old saying "out of sight, out of mind".

While an adult or older teen (say, one who's old enough to drive) may welcome the notion of having an out-of-the-way place to make noise, children and young teens don't like to be exiled to a garage or basement. Such places are scary especially when they're poorly lit. The kids feel more secure when they're physically near the rest of the family or in a more private place, such as a bedroom. If going down into the dark is the price a child has to pay to get to the instrument, the youngest children won't be willing to do it very often. Also, the act of playing while there are other people around who might be listening is very important to developing confidence as a player. To play and practice only in isolation, or to develop the idea that the people who love you the most don't want to hear the music you make, is discouraging. If the young player develops the notion he or she is being judged or rejected because of the music (or for not playing well enough) it can contribute to performance anxiety or stage fright later.

The Sound Of The Guitar Must Be Welcome

Musical instruments are noisy. Also, scales and exercises don't sound a lot like music. In fact, music being practiced slowly, one note at a time, doesn't sound much like what you hear on the radio. So before you invite a guitar into your home, you need a plan to manage the noise.

Odds are that other people in the house need quiet time to concentrate or to listen to something besides guitar practice. The best solution is time scheduling. Try to fit the guitar practice into time that isn't in high demand. After school, before the adults get home, is a great time to practice the guitar. School work or chores can then be scheduled during someone else's quiet time.

Headphones are not an ideal solution, because part of playing the guitar is developing a feel for the sound that's coming out of the instrument. For an electric guitar, this means the sound should come out of the speaker. Children who can practice only into a headset are cheated of this experience. They take longer to learn and to develop confident technique, and that translates into slower progress and more lesson fees for you, the parent.

A student should be able to have at least half an hour every day of practice at a reasonable volume, which is the same as that of a normal speaking or singing voice. Beyond that, it's reasonable to expect the student to wear a headset IF, for an equal amount of time, the other person requesting silence wears noise-canceling headphones. Forcing the musician to be the only one wearing a headset is unfair, especially if a non-musician child is allowed to make as much noise as he or she wants. It gives the musical child the message that someone else's video game, TV, radio, or phone chat is far more important than the musical child's practice.

The other down side to muzzling the guitar student is that he or she doesn't experience a playing situation in which other people are exposed to the sound of his or her guitar. Playing in the presence of people who aren't listening is an important first step in building performance confidence.

The very best thing you can do for you musical child is to make music with him or her. Jam, or play along. If you don't play an instrument, sing along. Nothing inspires a child quite as much as sharing an activity with a parent. Making music together is emotionally intimate and it requires trust and shared awareness.

Minimize, But Do Not Eliminate, Human Disruption

The student should not be watching TV or surfing the Internet while practicing. Yet the entire household need not be put on hold while practice is going on. Anything that doesn't touch the student, engage him or her in conversation, require him or her to physically move, or distract the student physically or visually is OK.

You don't need to keep all human beings out of the room, provided they're not a distraction. It's OK for a little brother or sister to be playing with blocks in the corner, however if that little brother or sister is climbing on the student, pulling at the guitar or the cable, throwing a tantrum, asking questions, or moving into the student's field of view, that's a distraction. So if you're asking the guitar student to "watch" a little brother or sister while practicing so that you can get dinner ready, be advised: you're saddling the guitar student with a level of distraction you, the adult, can't deal with while cooking. You might as well just preempt the practice and make the student babysit instead: the time spent will be about as useful progress-wise.

A TV or video game being used in the same room as the student is visually distracting. So is conversation about the student, or directed at the student. Nobody can practice and carry on a conversation at the same time. If you disrupt the practice, it may take several minutes for the student to get back in the groove. You can peek at the student to make sure he or she isn't on fire, but talking to the student or asking "a quick question" costs the student a good ten to twenty minutes to get back to where he or she was before you interrupted. If you do this twice or three times during a one-hour practice session, you've erased the student's progress for that day. This, by the way, applies to school study as well. If you have a question, the practical thing to do is to wait until dinnertime.

Although interacting with the student is out of bounds during practice, don't be afraid to walk through the room, to bang pots and pans together in the kitchen, or to make a phone call and talk to someone else. You should turn off the TV in the room where the student is practicing, but you don't need to ban people from using the room. To keep people out of the room is actually harmful, because making music around people who aren't necessarily listening to it is a critical part of building confidence. It's very easy for a coddled or isolated student to decide he or she is "unable" to make music when other people might hear it.

Resist The Urge To Criticize

As a parent, your duty is to support and nurture your musical child. Pointing out areas in which your child can, or should, improve musically is unnecessary. Leave that to teachers, performance judges, and peer rivals. One of the things you pay me for is to be the "bad cop".

If the music teacher has pointed something out to you, such as "he needs to sit up straight while practicing" or "she needs to work with a metronome on this passage", it's OK to remind your child what the music teacher said. This is one of the benefits of listening to the lesson: you know what corrections to make, to the extent you want to be involved.

If you've got some knowledge of music or the guitar, you may feel the urge to correct some aspect of the student's playing. It's best to discuss that with the teacher before making corrections. I sometimes have my students exaggerate one movement for a few weeks so as to isolate another one and gain control over it. So correcting the obvious exaggeration in movement actually undoes the work I'm trying to accomplish with the student. If you give the student material to study beyond what's in the lesson, that's great but the lesson material still needs to be practiced.

Resist The Urge To Compete With Your Child

Many parents are nervous about being surpassed by their children. I prefer that the parent work their issues out with a trusted friend or advisor. In families where a parent insists on displaying guitar dominance, the child loses confidence and interest almost immediately.

If You Live Vicariously Through Your Children, Keep It Healthy

I have no problem with parents who live vicariously through their children, provided the child enjoys doing all the activities you didn't get to do, and isn't being forced or pushed.

Although young children and some adults like to perform and compete, adolescents seldom do. Most are very self-conscious for biological and social reasons. Unfortunately, North American society is very competition-oriented, and performance and competition are glorified in our culture. Also, school based music teachers know their funding depends on performances and competitions regardless of whether the students are ready. So the pressure to compete and perform has been applied to younger and younger musicians. That's fine for people who enjoy it, but not everyone does.

If your child tells you he or she doesn't want to participate in a recital or compete in a music festival or talent show, accept his or her decision. Don't make performance or competition into a necessary criterion for music lessons. It stinks to have a parent so competition-oriented that the activity itself becomes stressful.

If enough people make this decision, misguided competition freaks won't have any more meat for their meat grinders, and more young musicians will have a chance to develop normally.

Take Ambition Seriously, But With A Grain Of Salt

If your child expresses a desire to be a professional musician, it's possible to be supportive while still being objective.

A lot of the time, children express enjoyment by using the language of commitment. Also, children are often rewarded for expressing a desire for achievement. So just because a student says he or she wants to play professionally, the words alone don't convince me.

What convinces me is action. If a child is wrapped around the instrument all day and night, practicing, playing, and learning, I believe the child loves the guitar. If the fascination persists into the teen years despite distractions from sports, school, and social activities, then I consider the ambition to be real.

If your child isn't practicing, doesn't like playing, but declares he or she is going to be a famous musician when he or she grows up, it's OK to smile and say "That's nice, dear". You're off the hook: it's just a phase.

Facing Reality

If you want your child to be a professional musician, you must realize that a lot of work goes into making an overnight success: about ten thousand hours of practice according to a study by K. Anders Ericsson of undergraduate music students. There's a direct relationship between practice time and "talent". Ericsson didn't find any natural geniuses who achieved star status with substantially less effort, nor did he find plodders who put in the time without getting the results. So there are two key ingredients for a professional musician: practice time, and quality instruction every step of the way. These key ingredients have been scientifically proven.

A less scientific key ingredient in a musical career is love. If the child doesn't love the instrument and the music, if he or she has to be forced to practice or play, it will show up in performance. You can't force love to exist. If your child loves a different instrument, or something besides music, then the guitar can never be more than an enrichment activity for him or her. As a parent, you may be in a position to open doors for your child, but you can't drag him or her through.

Time

An aspiring professional needs practice time. The more the child's attention is divided, the less likely he or she is to practice. That doesn't mean the child should never get a chance to do something besides music. All it means is that the child shouldn't be forced to go whole hog with absolutely every extracurricular activity, and be ultra-competitive in every single thing he or she tries. It's actually OK for children and teens to dabble a bit and to do things for fun. It helps them sort out which things are really important to them. Being expected to treat every activity as though it's number one simply burns a person out.

Prevent Crashing And Burning

Another thing you can do is help deter lifestyle choices that aren't conducive to a successful career in music. There are people who have become superstars despite early parenthood, a criminal record, or substance addiction, but they are rare. Most professional musicians keep their noses clean. You will notice that the stars who party hard are the ones who crash and burn. The people who stay in the industry and last either clean up their act or don't behave stupidly to begin with.

What can ruin a young musician's attitude is being forced to perform or compete, being punished for not playing well enough, or being forced to focus on music to the exclusion of something he or she wants more. One thing children and adolescents do quite often is change and develop new interests. If your child decides to become a doctor, or a teacher, or a welder instead, music will be set aside and there's nothing you can do about it except accept that it's been a great enrichment activity.

When To Let Go

Regardless of parental support, most people stop long before they have put in the kind of effort it takes to play well. They find some other thing they prefer to spend time on. Sometimes they pursue a different career. In any given music program, about one student out of every three makes it through each year of study. This is a natural selection process.

If you're the other kind of parent, and would prefer for your musical child to become a lawyer, or an engineer, or something else they can be proud of... relax. Your child may change his or her mind at any time, so it's possible you have nothing to worry about. Of course, if he or she is really destined to make a living in music, you can't stop him or her. The most you could do would be to create roadblocks, delay the inevitable, and undermine your child's self-confidence in the process.

While it's always better for a child to have his or her parent's trust and confidence, and to have a parent who believes in him or her, a child can actually survive just fine without it. The important thing is that the child never loses faith in himself or herself. Constant sniping, criticism, and second-guessing from a parent who wants to force a child into a different career path can do that. So if you can't honestly grant that approval or support, that's OK and nobody is going to take you to task for it, provided you zip your lip.

Find A Qualified Person To Advise Your Child

If your high school aged child has a serious interest in a career, any career, you'd do well to find someone who is already on the path your child wants to follow. The trouble with the music business is that it's actually several overlapping fields, and the path into them isn't clearly marked. There are a lot of unwritten rules. There's also a lot of worthless advice floating around, being peddled to aspiring musicians who don't yet have the sophistication to tell what's useful. So if you're not a professional musician yourself, or if you're not working in a related field, that qualified advisor is not going to be you.

In my line of work I run into people who believe they know all about the music business because they play "a bit", they were once in a garage band that went nowhere, read supermarket tabloids, they've seen musicians perform and thought "Gee, I could do better", and they've seen movies about Jim Morrison, Johnny Cash, and a jazz singer whose name they can't remember. So they consider themselves qualified to offer advice despite being completely ignorant. I'm surprised that such parents don't feel qualified to offer advice to a would-be dentist even though they also watched "Little Shop Of Horrors". Amazingly, these are the same parents who criticize their children for having a know-it-all attitude that isn't backed up by life experience. If you're such a parent, and your kid is my student, you and I will probably have a short but loud conversation about the pot and the kettle.

Even high school guidance counselors are limited by the fact that they only really know about disciplines that involve higher education. Aside from recommending that your child study music at a university (which may not be the best choice), they have no advice to give.

I don't recommend that parents just step back and rely on the child to determine who is or isn't a qualified advice-giver. That kid has to summon up the courage, confidence, and initiative to track down and speak to some very intimidating people. Of course, children and teens aren't known for their confidence. A lot of them are scared of authority figures, including their music teachers. Since you're an adult, and a peer of all these other adults, one of the best gifts you can give your child is a competent advisor. Start with the music teacher, and branch out from there.

Give Your Child Entrepreneurial Skills

In the music industry, there aren't many situations in which you can have just one employer and a steady pay check the way a factory worker does. Unless your child is going after a symphony chair or a university professorship, or intends to teach in a private school, he or she will probably have to be an entrepreneur. Skills such as basic bookkeeping, contract law, and instrument maintenance and repair will be valuable.

Other people may point out to you that your child can, and should, hire an expert to manage the money or the legal aspects of his or her career. It's true that there are only twenty-four hours in a day and the more of them that can be spent making music, the better. Yet your child needs to know enough about law and bookkeeping to be able to keep an eye on the people hired to look after his or her best interests. Your child must always be the president and CEO of his or her own career. Even if he or she is in a position to hire a manager, he or she always needs to know how to manage that person.

Enjoy Your Musical Child

This seems like the most obvious part to me, and it's the part a lot of parents forget to do. Jam with your child. Sing with him or her. Enjoy the performances and the music, and partake in the joy your child gets from playing the instrument.