Striking The Right Note With Children & Music Education

Children instinctively respond to music. Why else do parents sing lullabies to babies? Almost as soon as they can walk, toddlers will jiggle around and dance to music, and young children delight in recognising and singing along to favourite tunes.

Should Children Take Music Lessons?

Regardless of whether a child has the potential to pursue music professionally, or simply wants to learn for their own enjoyment, Inna Kazakova, a teacher at Cayman Music School, believes that learning music can only ever be beneficial.

Based on 24 years teaching experience, Inna has seen how learning music not only develops a child’s ability to sing or play an instrument, but also enhances certain life-skills, benefitting other areas of learning.

How Learning Music Benefits Other Areas Of Learning:

•   Regular practise instils in children self discipline, perseverance and patience.
•  A great deal of music – the beats, rhythms and patterns – is essentially maths, and there is significant evidence that children who learn music perform better at maths.
•  Learning music involves collaboration and communication: playing as a group is all about teamwork, learning one’s role within the bigger picture and working together to produce the desired result.
•  Music fosters self-esteem: a child will naturally feel proud of having mastered new musical skills through their own efforts, and playing or singing in front of an audience is a great confidence-booster.
•  Music improves memory: learning lyrics or pieces of music exercises the mind.
•  Children who sing or play a musical instrument tend to express themselves better, can memorise challenging words and even learn other languages more easily.

What is The ‘Right’ Age To Start Learning Music?

Because every child is different and learns at his or her own pace, Inna believes there is no universally correct answer to when a child should start lessons.

Of course, to be able to pursue a career in music, one would ideally start learning music as soon as possible – and certainly before age nine – but for those who simply want to learn to sing or play an instrument for their own personal pleasure, it’s never too early nor too late.

Inna recommends that parents expose their children to music early on. “Teaching a baby or toddler to move to the music develops a sense of rhythm,” she says. “Listen to music, go to concerts or take your toddler to early music and movement classes.”

What Instrument Should A Child Learn?

There are no hard and fast rules for which instrument a child should learn or at what age they should start but, in general, Inna says age six to seven is a good time to take up an instrument.

The piano and violin are the two most common ones to start with, although some children tackle the guitar or ukulele first. Certain brass and percussion instruments are best left until a child is a little older.

“It depends on the physical development of the child – their finger strength and length, body strength and muscle mass – but usually a teacher will be able to tell when a child is ready to learn a particular instrument,” explains Inna.

Every parent wants to help their child discover his or her talents, and thus, give them a chance to fully develop these. But even if a child is not a natural musician, giving them an early grounding in music, so that they can enjoy and appreciate it, is a gift that will benefit them for the rest of their lives.