> Music lessons—like many activities taken up during our youth—rest heavily on the student–teacher–parent triad. “Some teachers find it’s their job to make stud

> Music lessons—like many activities taken up during our youth—rest heavily on the student–teacher–parent triad. “Some teachers find it’s their job to make students get better,” Pappas says. “But what a teacher really needs to do is give their students the tools to make themselves better.” The absolute critical thing for learning, the thing a teach and/or parent must do to make a child successful, is not just giving tools. You have to inspire a child to love music. You have to plant in them the seed of desire to create beautiful sound. And you have to make it fun to do. Otherwise it is just another boring chore, with no clear internalized goal. When we wanted our children to learn to play an instrument, we spent months playing Bach and Mozzart for them, and explaining what was going on in the music. We played our instruments around them, and let them investigate them. Eventually they started asking us how they could make their own music, and that's when we began lessons. "If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men and women to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."