5 ms·

I had piano and clarinet lessons as a kid, and kept them up into my teens. I rarely practiced except when I was forced to, and I wasn't very good at practising

I had piano and clarinet lessons as a kid, and kept them up into my teens. I rarely practiced except when I was forced to, and I wasn't very good at practising when I did. I don't consider this abuse by the way, I was "forced" to go to school lessons too (not that I'm questioning Wil Wheaton's experience, which sounds quite different). Ultimately I found the repetition required in practising extremely boring, and I didn't have enough inner drive to get better. There's probably (a lack of) natural aptitude involved too, although this is hard to disentangle from motivation - a negative feedback loop maybe. When I hear an good musician now, I inevitably wish I'd tried harder and could do what they do. If I hadn't had lessons, perhaps I'd blame my folks for the fact that I can't play jazz. But I was given every opportunity, had lessons for years, and didn't prioritise it. I just accept that it wasn't for me. My parents also encouraged me to join a choir, and whilst I tended to daydream in choir practice, I kept that up into adulthood and it's had a major impact on my life.

prirun 4y ago
> When I hear an good musician now, I inevitably wish I'd tried harder and could do what they do. I listen to good piano performances on YT and wish I was as good. But then I think about how much time I have spent being good with computers and realize that I could not have spent that much time on piano too. They probably spent as much time over their life pecking on a piano as I have pecking on a computer. There's only so much time in a day!
apohn 4y ago
> But I was given every opportunity, had lessons for years, and didn't prioritise it. I just accept that it wasn't for me. I have a similar story to yours, just with clarinet and flute. Our school (outside the USA) had mandatory lessons and practice, so there was some degree of being forced to do it. I took some piano lessons as an adult and enjoyed it. My piano teacher told me something that really stuck with me. "People who write Adult piano books know the learner isn't going to become a professional classical musician. So they just teach you to play some fun songs and you can enjoy it. Children's music education makes kids suffer under the assumption that they are might one day take it very seriously and become classical musicians. So you perform scales endlessly, have to learn perfect form, learn instruments you don't want to learn because you need to learn the clarinet before you can learn the Sax, learn a bunch of boring classical music when you are excited by other stuff on the radio, practice like crazy for exams, etc. It completely kills their interest in music."
- anonymous_sorry 4y ago
  This strikes a chord (sorry). Scales and arpeggios were the worst.

prirun 4y ago

> When I hear an good musician now, I inevitably wish I'd tried harder and could do what they do. I listen to good piano performances on YT and wish I was as good. But then I think about how much time I have spent being good with computers and realize that I could not have spent that much time on piano too. They probably spent as much time over their life pecking on a piano as I have pecking on a computer. There's only so much time in a day!

apohn 4y ago

> But I was given every opportunity, had lessons for years, and didn't prioritise it. I just accept that it wasn't for me. I have a similar story to yours, just with clarinet and flute. Our school (outside the USA) had mandatory lessons and practice, so there was some degree of being forced to do it. I took some piano lessons as an adult and enjoyed it. My piano teacher told me something that really stuck with me. "People who write Adult piano books know the learner isn't going to become a professional classical musician. So they just teach you to play some fun songs and you can enjoy it. Children's music education makes kids suffer under the assumption that they are might one day take it very seriously and become classical musicians. So you perform scales endlessly, have to learn perfect form, learn instruments you don't want to learn because you need to learn the clarinet before you can learn the Sax, learn a bunch of boring classical music when you are excited by other stuff on the radio, practice like crazy for exams, etc. It completely kills their interest in music."

anonymous_sorry 4y ago
This strikes a chord (sorry). Scales and arpeggios were the worst.