Learning to play the guitar properly is not an easy task. It takes years of dedication, practice and delayed gratification. Those things are in short supply these days. I’m an intermediate player and it’s taken me a long time to get where I am. I have one nephew who plays the drums. When he was younger he took some lessons and then lost interest, then came back to it. Now he’s in the high school band and practices at least 4 to 5 hours a day. He’s highly motivated now and will probably pursue a career in music. He’s definitely the exception among his peers.
I agree. I know that one of the other issues I should have mentioned in this article is the fact that so few parents even follow up on the kid practicing his/her lessons properly. That's because they are non-musicians themselves - and they look to me to do all the heavy lifting, then wonder why their kid isn't improving. My parents were musicians, but they never had to tell me to practice my lessons. I wanted to get better because it was my growing identity, and I wanted to nurture it. My hope is that the cycles will continue and things will come back around. There are a lot of amazing young instrumentalists out there.
Learning to play the guitar properly is not an easy task. It takes years of dedication, practice and delayed gratification. Those things are in short supply these days. I’m an intermediate player and it’s taken me a long time to get where I am. I have one nephew who plays the drums. When he was younger he took some lessons and then lost interest, then came back to it. Now he’s in the high school band and practices at least 4 to 5 hours a day. He’s highly motivated now and will probably pursue a career in music. He’s definitely the exception among his peers.
I agree. I know that one of the other issues I should have mentioned in this article is the fact that so few parents even follow up on the kid practicing his/her lessons properly. That's because they are non-musicians themselves - and they look to me to do all the heavy lifting, then wonder why their kid isn't improving. My parents were musicians, but they never had to tell me to practice my lessons. I wanted to get better because it was my growing identity, and I wanted to nurture it. My hope is that the cycles will continue and things will come back around. There are a lot of amazing young instrumentalists out there.