Dear Alma, How do I keep my kid out of music?
Daily Comfort ZoneAnother major issue from our agony aunt’s mailbag:
Dear Alma,
My daughter, aged eight, is following in my footsteps and playing clarinet. I ought to be pleased, right?
I’m not.
First, I don’t think she’s particularly musical or creative. Second, I don’t want her to advance too far down the musical track only to find there’s no job for her at the end.
I respond with praise when she plays me a new piece, but part of me wants to direct her to something else – football, maybe, or Barbie.
I’m hurting here. Help.
Bad mother
Dear Bad Mother,
She sounds absolutely adorable! I can just now see her big, rounded eyes as she toots out the The Lonely Birch Tree, knowing in her heart of hearts that mom is the coolest ever person and now they BOTH know how to play clarinet. She tells everyone in school that her mom is super famous and plays huge concerts. The notion that she wants to follow in your footsteps must mean that you are, in her eyes, a happy, fulfilled and successful person. Mom Rules!
I know what you mean, though, Bad Mother. I am forever flipping back and forth between pride when my children excel on their instruments, and horror that they may indeed be interested in pursuing a life in classical music. It honestly wakes me up at night. Often. Imagining a life of dashed dreams, unfulfilled expectations, and financial worries. How do musical parents turn their kids into doctors and lawyers? Or veterinarians and financial planners? I honestly don’t have the slightest clue. Wish I had the answer. I am a Bad Alma.
But then I see all of the goodness that comes from music. The patience, the development of creativity, learning to be kind and generous to others, determination. Obsession. Passion. And all of these skills help us to be better people. To be happier and not satisfied with mediocrity.
Bad Mother, you are correct. Yes you should expose her to many things, as much variety as possible. Horse riding and tide pooling, jazz clarinet and hip hop
dance, photography and coding. Let her find her interests. Encourage her. If she ends up following clarinet, I can guarantee that the music world she enters in 15 years will be vastly different from the one you began in 20 years ago. Imagine what Lizzo has done to the flute, but your daughter might do on clarinet. Or Lindsey Stirling and violin. And now fast forward 15 years. Anything is possible!
No matter where she finds happiness, it is your support which will encourage her and help her find her own unique path through life. Take a deep breath, avoid looking too deeply into your own bitter taste of your imagined future for her, and open your eyes to her love of you. There is no better gift than a child who looks up to her parent. Lucky you – enjoy every minute!
Questions for Alma? Please put them in the comments section or send to DearAlmaQuery@gmail.com
“There’s no job for her at the end”:
Someone who actually loves music wouldn’t keep their child from playing an instrument because it’s a tough job market. There is so much in music to enrich one’s life, it doesn’t matter in the slightest whether it turns out to be her career or not.
Great response. Thank you for being the voice of reason. If we are fortunate, society may just return to the days of music making in the home
The concern is about making it a profession, not about keeping the kid away from the instrument. Try to pay your bills with some musical passion.
Absolutely! Well-said. It’s about the love of it.
My niece double-majored at a top university. Music got her in the door.
She’s having a great career. Plus, she can always go into her second passion: software engineering.
Underwater basket-weaving is perfectly fine as long as it’s supplemented by medical school or finance. The unwise move would be to attend a pricey conservatory; a job at Starbucks won’t cover one’s tuition loan payments for a degree from The Juilliard or New England Conservatory
It’s great to have more than one major, I agree
Please also expose her to the kitchen and how to behave herself. If you are concerned about her financial future, or if you might want grandchildren, give her a chance to marry well before she hits the Wall.
You are hilarious.
The usual waffling, 15 words where 5 are hardly necessary, and other filler. Fixed it for you: You’re right. Keep your kid out of music. Not only won’t they have a job, they will miss developing more important skills that they will definitely need in the increasingly competitive and expensive future. Also, anybody who looks at “Lizzo” as an example for a young girl is a fool.
I hope you are not a parent! Lizzo is more powerful and successful than anyone in Classical Music….and she did it on her own!
Nonsense.
I agree with most everything except the bit regarding hip hop: that genre of noise should be cancelled for its blatant misogyny and perpetuating racial stereotypes.
Lizzy and other female performers have taken the genre and turned it around.
Hip Hop dance is really fun and empowering!
The answer to the question of ‘How to keep my kid out of music’ is simple: let her read the comments section of SD.
The problem with that suggestion is, that probably most of the commenters are not musicians, or at least, professional, successful musicians. Some might even be bots. Otherwise, I agree with you.
Your daughter is “ not particularly creative or musical” so will never progress far in this field… but it doesn’t mean she cannot have terrific fun playing in youth ensembles… an experience she will love and never forget.
Why should learning to play an instrument automatically equate to wanting to make music one’s profession?
Given that these infinitely banal supposed pleas appear to come exclusively from our American cousins, with ‘expert’ advice in kind, I would urge the rest of us to shrug and carry on.
This “kid” – meaning me – was raised in a musically active home. My mother completed her piano training by graduating from a conservatory. My father, who did NOT graduate from a conservatory, could play anything he wanted by ear on the piano – and changed key signatures whenever he wanted, although he had little knowledge of music theory. Being an only child, my parents were my role models, i.e. if they can do something, then so can I. By the time I was 12 I had learned to play piano, organ and clarinet. Both of my parents loved music, but neither had any ambitions to become a professional musician. Had I wanted to be a professional musician, I know that they would have supported me, but they were not disillusioned by the fact that I did NOT want to be a professional musician. Bottom line: I have never regretted all the hours I devoted to practicing any of these instruments. That effort resulted in a musical foundation for life, allowing me to enjoy well performed classical music and to distinguish it easily from poor performances. Given my experience: I simply cannot understand why anyone would want to deprive a young person of participating actively in music. The same is true for sports: Why keep a boy from playing football – not soccer, football? Not everyone who learns to play the piano must necessarily become an Igor Levit, just as not every youngster who plays football must necessarily turn out to be another Tom Brady. Childhood is the right time to experiment with such interests … later it will most likely be too late …
Was it Leonard Bernstein who said, “You get into music if you can’t NOT get into music?”
Other than that, I agree with Also about the skills developed while studying music as a child (look at the percentage of Nobel Prize winners who studied music as children — and who still play.)
This is good, solid advice, as always. Who is Alma? Norman – thanks for bringing her to us. Brightens up the news on Slipped Disc.
Lizzo and Lindsay Stirling? Why not Emmanuel Pahud or Hilary Hahn (or Andreas Ottensamer). Isn’t this a Classical Music site? [redacted: untrue]
Playing the clarinet at eight should be alarming because it’s too soon to be playing the clarinet. There is little disadvantage to starting later.
For most kids playing band instruments it’s mostly about the social experience of being with more-like-minded peers, not so much the joys of music which they are probably mediocre at.
But if she’s still playing avidly clarinet at 18 (unlikely), one easy firewall is to refuse to pay for a college education in clarinet playing. And strongly counsel her not to borrow money to do that.
Remind her that music schools don’t admit students because there are jobs for their graduates, music schools admit student because they need students to stay in business.
Music and Sex. So much better as hobbies than as professions.