Comment by tzs
9 hours ago
People should prepare their kids to be happy adults, not just employed adults.
I recall reading of studies that found that a significant majority of adults who did not learn to play an instrument when they were young wish that they had.
Only a small minority of adults who did learn to play an instrument when young wish that they hadn't.
I was often really frustrated with my parents pushing me to learn at least some basics on the piano. Why do I have to practice, I want to watch Dragonball Z. Practicing is sooooo boring. Ugh.
I'm still not amazing at piano. But having a basic understanding of musical theory, understanding how a lot of these concepts of harmonics and tones and waves are related, have really unlocked a lot of neat things throughout my life. Their push for me to learn an instrument drove me to performing for family events including a couple of weddings, with my involvement in their day still quite a powerful shared memory between us. It led me to learn additional musical instruments, which I enjoyed a lot more than piano. It helped me in other artistic endeavors like theater. It helped me understand music production, something I moonlight in as a volunteer. It gave me instant connections with lots of people who were important people in my life but probably would have forever been passing strangers. It has given me something else to share with my children, as they routinely ask me to play for them and show them how instruments work. A basic understanding of waves and harmonics and what not even helped me understand a lot of more complicated EE topics.
Learning an instrument early in my life was definitely a powerful and deeply impactful thing in my life journey, almost entirely positively outside of many afternoons where I had to catch up on DBZ later.