*Warning… Entry may be completely devoid of writer’s usual wit and charm <oh come on, it’s my blog isn’t it> because she’s working things out in her own head about how, when and whether to start Rockstar on music lessons.
(She would add this has nothing to do with the electric guitar he got for his bday but like, why bother)
Pro: He’s typing his Mr Men Collection on Word Doc
Con: He’s typing his Mr Men Collection on Word Doc
(instead of trying to write, which he still can’t)
Conclusion:
At least he prefers Word to tv and I needed a moment of sanity so I’ll take it!!
Off the BBC website somewhere in the music section:
The Mozart Effect suggests that your child can increase their intelligence by listening to Mozart’s music. It claims to have the backing of scientific research and has generated a vast literature. It sounds like a wonderful idea. However, it’s not that simple.
“There’s no evidence that just listening to music has any effect at all.” Dr. Alexandra Lamont, University of Keele
Also:
ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2009) — Children exposed to a multi-year programme of music tuition involving training in increasingly complex rhythmic, tonal, and practical skills display superior cognitive performance in reading skills compared with their non-musically trained peers, according to a study published in the journal Psychology of Music.
Play music while baby Rockstar slept:
<All self important> Very Ceremonious Check!
Except it had nothing to do with upping his IQ. Nor was much, if any of it, Mozart. (And we also know a Korean family who questioned the quality of sleep/ play etc when there was background music to distract the young mind.)
(I have no further comment re IQ-upping because I believe it is nothing without other factors in a child’s upbringing that I count far more important. And the only reason I mention I tested within the highest 1-2% of the population in my late teens (quite sure it was 1% but too lazy to dig up the old test result my dad proudly laminated) on the (then) standard Mensa test is to further color my previous statement.
Early on in my working life I was strongly advised by a mentor not to disclose my Mensa test score on my cv. But I’m not working now, and I wanted to argue for how IQ ain’t everything – look at me haha)
My mum brought over some baby sleep music cd made up of various classical music pieces and while I can instantly identify snippets, we used to play the cd so often, I have no freaking idea what the song titles were – we lost the cd cover amid the jumble of baby blankets, half-chewed drool-covered toys and soiled diapers what now seems like a millenium ago.
We were playing any baby sleep music to help Rockstar differentiate between night and day (besides hanging the usual thick blackout curtains, and (very) loosely following the Gina Ford Contented Baby schedule stuff). When he woke, we played lively nursery rhymes as we went thru those baby exercises to get him moving about faster under his pediatrician Dr Leo Chan’s instructions.
(Music was the most effective, actually, because Rockstar likes sleeping with the lights on – but play the sleep music and his whole body immediately relaxes.)
I got my own Grade 8 in piano at age 17 ie not particularly early, though one of my earliest toddler memories is of Yamaha group music lessons in Petaling Jaya where I was born. My mum initially hoped I would ‘enjoy” music, rather than simply learn exam pieces, so I had music lessons very young, but only started exams when I was the ripe old age of 9. She enrolled for music lessons with me, and mother and daughter did scales and arpeggios together til Grade 3 when arthritis made it hard for her to keep up.
But along with those memories are ones of when I began to join little group concerts and demonstrations as a child.
There was a “system.” Play each piece 3 times perfectly, before you can move on to the next. For each mistake you make, you will need to play the piece 3 more times perfectly, before you can move on. That didn’t last too long – I did worse with the 3 times rule and they eventually scrapped it – it didn’t help get me in concerts much.
(Another one lasted much longer though – when we were out in the car, I had to add up the numbers on car license plates around us. That soon graduated to converting miles to kilometers when we passed milestones on the highways or even dirt roads in Malaysia. My dad competed with me on speed and accuracy.)
I think I was about 9 years old when we started. I also served the coffee – that meant making sure the mug was full after just one swig, not making sure there was any in the pot. In my teens I knew kids in our neighborhood who were subjected to similar, though maybe they started a little later. And at least a few never go home anymore.
Sometimes, I think I know where they are, I know the way to that place. As a teen I questioned how much of what I was being made to accomplish was really for me. Sometimes, I didn’t care – I just wanted the family to be happy, hoped for parents who wouldn’t fight – and if I achieved, at least for awhile everyone was happy. It was “so easy” to have “a happy family” – achieve, it makes people happy.
The sweeter the idealist, the more bitter the cynic upon disillusionment. I badly needed Christianity to teach me it doesn’t matter – honor my parents anyway – to bring me back. Ironic, since they are staunch Buddhists.
The year I did my Grade 8, I also had:
Black belt grading in Taekwondo (3-5 days’ training a week)
State Championships for Taekwondo
State Debate Championships
Interact Club President (mostly fund raisings for donations)
SPM (Roughly like O-levels) – (up to 3 tuition classes a day after school – I took the max allowable number of subjects, ie 10)
(Those were the big ones, there were various other little activities like science fairs, British Council English papers, Infamous Mensa Test – then again you do nothing for that last one except show up and sit for it)
I had no time to put in the proper hours to practice the piano. I had maybe, half the hours. So I taped myself playing, looked for the tapes of my exam pieces as played by erm, “actual” pianists, listened to everything when I could, and swapped the aural exam (which you need to practice for) for the riskier on-the-spot “composition”-type thing where the examiner shows you a tune and you put in the accompaniment on the spot.
(I also wore taekwondo tournament pads around the house on occasion so I would move better in them on Championship day.)
I slept about 6 hours every day, and some nights I remember hoping to wake in the middle of the night, just so it would feel like I had had more hours in bed (instead of closing my eyes, then opening them a moment later to find it was time for school.)
One night when I was studying for the SPM, some of my mum’s students (about the same age as I was) showed up in cars they stopped outside the house – they’d been in the neighborhood and decided to drop by with a “hi” around 9.30pm on their way out to Goodness Knows Whatever The Cool Place Was In ‘90s Penang.
As their laughter bubbled up to the second floor and I peered out enviously at the cars parked in our driveway, I realized I had never been out in a car with a bunch of friends. There simply wasn’t time. The deal was I had to complete all the stuff my parents planned (like music) before I was allowed to do the stuff I wanted (like taekwondo).
When a child is used to training with the weights on, she flies after you take them off. But then sometimes after she takes off she never looks back.
With music, I don’t think there are many kids out there who willingly sit down and put in the hours they’re supposed to (though half the hours like what I did and scraping thru by the skin of my teeth might still be acceptable haha). Child protégés, children who are gifted, often risk their childhoods. (Not that I count myself one ok, I’ve met people who have perfect pitch, so I know to what extent I don’t. Really don’t.)
To this day what I really like is hip hop. Fergie and the Black Eyed Peas.
When I was pregnant with Rockstar I hated playing the piano. Maybe it’s a sign.
But then there’s also all the research showing music education does help developing brains. Maybe that’s a sign too.
I guess we’ll try it for awhile. When we get round to finding a convenient place for lessons/ a tutor he doesn’t hate with the force of a thousand suns.
I always performed better with carrots than sticks. I think it would be unfair to my own child if I forgot what a stick felt like.
Do we get the same benefits from drums (he wields a mean drumstick) or air guitar, or does it have to be piano or violin? Piano’s the less painful one right?
Kings thinks the guitar is too easy. My husband, who would rather go to the dentist than learn a musical instrument. Kings counts pretty much his whole family (himself included) tone deaf. My dad too.
If Rockstar really doesn’t take to music lessons (which isn’t like, out of the realm of possibility, given his family pedigree for musical talent)…
Maybe that’s a sign too.
ps: I really appreciate the email from a reader shortly after this was first posted, which is about as much experience as I’ve ever had with didgeridoos, trumpets and accordians. Hey. Those uh, also make music. There are more choices out there to make music lessons more palatable to a Rockstar…
