Music Man... datory?

This week on Mom.me, I wrote about music lessons being mandatory for me as a child...

When I was seven years old, my mother made me play piano. Not, like, Tiger Mom style but, like, “you have to learn an instrument, and OH LOOK we have a piano in our house!” style.

I told her that I wanted to play violin instead.

So I took violin lessons and hated it.

“Perhaps, the Clarinet is for me!” thought I.

Six months later: it was not.

Piano it was.

I played the piano for seven years and absolutely HATED it. I hated practicing. I hated reading music. I hated piano recitals and regularly froze on stage. (I get PTSD every time I hear Fur Elise because I once had a full on brain freeze while playing it on a stage in front of an audience of people and ended up running down the halls hysterical and throwing myself into the bushes in order to die there and never be found.)

I also wrote about music lessons being mandatory for my kids, too. The guitar, specifically. The ACOUSTIC guitar, specifically. Electric guitar rules, too, but they're not exactly... quiet or portable. 

Because... guitar can be played anywhere… at any time at any point in your life. Archer can play privately… he can play alone. And for a child who prefers to work alone and write alone and be inside his head alone, it could not be a more ideal instrument.

Archer doesn’t need to depend on other instruments or a band or a soundproof room … and as a parent whose role is to nurture her children’s independent spirit(s), that means everything...

Fable’s still a little young to play, but when she turns 8 in a couple of years, we’ll start her up, too. And Bo and Revi will take lessons as well. If after a year of guitar, they decide that they’d like to play something else, they can do that, too. But I still want them to play guitar as their first instrument. Because, in the same way the kids HAVE to learn to swim for their own physical safety, I feel that music, specifically an instrument that can be played while singing in a small room anywhere in the world, is a safety course as well. Swimming lessons for the spirit, if you will. Swimming lessons for the soul...

You can read the whole column, here. And, as always, I'd love to hear from you guys re: whether or not music is mandatory in your household. And as always, please also let me know if you have any ideas for next week's "I hear ya..."

Have a lovely weekend, all. 

GGC