The best kind of music to learn is social music

Or: will they ever stay up late playing this kind of music for fun?

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My sense of the median American child who takes music lessons is that it goes something like:

• Learn an instrument in a school class and/or in private lessons
• Twice a year, perform at some kind of recital or school concert. Your family will attend because you are in it, not because they would attend such a concert for fun.
• Quit when you’re 15
• Your instrument stays at your parents’ house until you’re 25, at which point you take it to your place and feel a little guilty when you see it in your closet.

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My nine-year-old has been taking fiddle lessons this year, and she’s starting to be able to play with other musicians at social events. This is great! She’s able to plug in to the scene because her teacher and her dad are in a band together, so she’s learning tunes that they play. When the local contra dance has a tunes party or an open band, Jeff talks her through some notes to play that go with the chords. Other adults are gracious about including her by being willing to jam on the simple tunes that she’s learned so far.

If your kid is going to learn to play or sing, I think it’s worth trying to find a way for them to plug into a community of people who make this music regularly for fun.

Types of music that seem to have good opportunities for playing/singing socially:

• Guitar or ukulele chords that can accompany singing 
• Piano chords for singing (pop music, hymns at church)
• Folk music of various kinds (Irish, contra, bluegrass, mariachi, etc)
• Gospel singing and other more vernacular singing, rather than music that takes a lot of rehearsal per piece. Although choir practice does involve making music together each week, which is already more social than most music lessons.
• School of Honk in the Boston area: street band music with an emphasis on participation rather than perfection

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Is there a greater satisfaction and meaning in learning more complex music like classical?

As a teenager, I was part of a serious children’s choir that got to perform in some big productions of classical pieces. The final section of the Britten War Requiem is etched into me, and I’m glad I got to be part of it. But most of my memories of the years in that choir are of the director trying to get us to stop talking.

It’s also possible to play classical music more socially. Jeff’s grandmother played classical violin and would host Brandenburg parties, and there are classical music summer camps for kids and adults. But it’s harder to skill up on classical music to where you can play music with others for fun like this.

And some people really do like working on harder pieces independently. But I bet you can’t think of many.

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I think some people feel that studying an instrument seriously is a character-building exercise. I feel like school is enough of that, and I’d rather look for something my child genuinely wants to learn (riding a bike? coding?) than push them into music because it’s prestigious.