by
Olesya MacNeil
Why do children lose interest in music lessons within
the first 6 months? After listening to parents tell me their stories of signing
up their children with a music teacher or a music school only see their
children’s loss of interest so soon, I wondered why?
In my extensive teaching and now, running my own music
school, I saw only a few dropouts after 6 months of studying and two of those
were due to parents’ divorce and change of address, and the third student was
just not interested to begin play an instrument in the first place.
I began questioning the parents about their children’s
lessons and found an astonishing difference.
Those music students who didn’t experience early drop-out
were exposed to the following:
1. Teacher’s passion for teaching and
creativity counts.
It becomes more and more popular all over the world to
start teaching children music, math and reading young. The majority of new
music students today are 3-5 year old. We must ask ourselves: how do 3, 4 and
5-year old learn? 3- and 4-year old children have expansive imagination and
natural curiosity. Some children this age have pretend friends, love making
silly faces, singing unintelligible songs and being funny. They learn best when
they are active- dancing, moving, stomping feet, snapping fingers and clapping
hands. 5-year olds have a natural desire to become independent and feel grown
up. They are eager to learn at this age and their learning should be fun, inspiring
and creative.
What resources do music teachers have enabling them to
provide fun and interactive individual music lessons to very young children?
There is not much material today to support instructors in their teaching
process when working with very young kids. Teachers must encourage learning and
stimulate children’s natural curiosity and enthusiasms for learning. Teachers
must be creative in preparing their lessons plans and fill young children’s
lessons with music-related activities that boost their imagination and
creativity. Once a student falls in love with music, the child will be ready
for the next, more advanced and difficult level of playing with both hands, and
learning music theory and improvisation.
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