Having a musical education can be very valuable and enriching. Parents that sign their children up for music lessons have found this out many times. Hand-eye coordination is developed when music is played, and discipline is created. Happiness is found by not only the person creating the music but also by those that listen to it. Intelligence has also been found when a musical instrument is played. Many parents wonder at what age they should have their child start to play piano. Here we will talk about what age may be the best.
Children are all different. So this makes it hard to say if there is a perfect age to play piano when beginning. Some children learn to play as soon as they are three because they have an older sibling in the house that plays. Others will not start until they are twelve or thirteen because they become interested in music. Many children will start at the age of five or six.
Now, let’s talk about that three-year-old again. Can a three-year-old really be expected to play piano? If a three-year-old has an interest to play piano, there is nothing wrong with letting them explore the piano. But this should be done in the manner that they want to do it, without any set schedule. Should they be forced to play? Probably not. That may cause them to hate everything about the piano when they become older. And a child this age does not have a very long attention span, so paying towards coaching will most likely be pointless. The music teacher will spend a great deal of his or her time averting the youngster instead of teaching anything.
If you like the idea of your child being involved with music, and your youngster is too young to perform on the musical instrument, spend this time with them musically involved. Sing and dance with them. Listen to a variety of music. Send your kid to a music curriculum, such as Kindermusik. By building musical concepts, you can build a great, solid framework for your child’s love of music.
There are some requirements that should be met in order to see if a youngster is set to play piano. These include the following:
- Is the child able to arrange their fingers on five white keys that are adjacent to each other? This may not be possible for every five-year-old. A child’s hand must be big enough to be able to do this, or they will not be ready enough to play this musical instrument.
- Does the young person possess finger independence? Can they keep up all the fingers and move only the finger you ask them to?
- Does the young one have a passion to discover new things? Are they interested in songs? If you make your child take piano lesson, they will struggle with learning or try to rebel against it. If your child does act interested, and you do start lessons, but then they lose interest, you can take a rest for a while and then try starting back up again.
The best age that most parents have found to start piano lessons is around age six. This makes sense as this is the age when children are going to kindergarten and have adult direction at school. Their hands are flexible enough to move around on the keyboard too.
Once your child has started to play piano, you should consider purchasing a piano for your home to practice on. Consider purchasing from a trusted piano shop, such as Dave’s Piano Showroom.
Picture Credit: nightowl