Despite the fact that the child sings Cheburashka songs out of tune and has no ear for music; despite the fact that there's no room for a piano and the grandmother can't take the child to music lessons; despite the fact that the child has no time at all—English, Spanish, swimming, ballet, and so on and so forth…
There are compelling reasons to overcome all of this and still teach music, and all modern parents should know these reasons:
1. To play is to follow tradition.
All aristocrats, Russian and European, were taught music. Playing music is a form of polish, glamour, and chic, the apotheosis of high society manners.
Duke Ellington started playing the piano because girls always gather around a guy playing. But what about a girl playing?
Attention, parents of the brides!
2. Music lessons develop willpower and discipline: you need to practice your instrument constantly, regularly, and without breaks.
Winter and summer, weekdays and holidays. With almost the same tenacity that champions train with in the gym and on the skating rink. But, unlike those athletic heroes, playing the piano doesn't mean you can break your neck, your leg, or even your arm. Attention, strict parents! Music is character building without the risk of injury: how wonderful that's possible!
3. By studying music, a child develops mathematical abilities.
He thinks spatially, hitting the right keys, manipulates abstract sound figures, memorizing musical notation, and knows that in a musical piece, as in a mathematical proof, there is no way to add or subtract!
It's no coincidence that Albert Einstein played the violin, and that Oxford physics and mathematics professors make up 70% of the university's music club members. Attention, forward-thinking parents of future mathematicians and engineers! Playing music is more enjoyable than solving difficult problems under the tutor's thumb.
4. Music and language are twin brothers. They were born one after the other: first the elder – music; then the younger – verbal speech, and in our brain they continue to live side by side.
Phrases and sentences, commas and periods, questions and exclamations are found in both music and speech.
Those who play and sing speak and write better, remember foreign words more easily, and learn grammar faster.
Music lovers and writers Turgenev and Stendhal, Boris Pasternak and Leo Tolstoy, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Romain Rolland, each of whom knew more than one foreign language, recommend music to all future polyglots. Attention, wise parents of future journalists and translators! In the beginning was the Word, but even earlier was Sound.
5. Music is structural and hierarchical: large works are divided into smaller sections, which in turn are divided into small themes and fragments consisting of small phrases and motifs.
A natural understanding of musical hierarchy facilitates understanding of computers, which are also entirely hierarchical and structural. Psychologists have proven that young musicians, students of the renowned Shinichi Suzuki, while not particularly adept at developing musical ear and memory, surpassed their peers in their level of structural thinking.
Attention, pragmatic parents of future IT engineers, system administrators, and programmers! Music leads directly to the heights of computer science; it's no coincidence that Microsoft prefers employees with a musical background.
6. Music lessons develop communication skills, or, as they are called today, communicative skills.
Over the years of study, a child musician will become acquainted with the gallant and friendly Mozart, the prickly and athletic Prokofiev, the wise and philosophical Bach, and other very different musical figures. While performing, they will have to embody them and convey to the audience their character, sensibility, voice, and gestures.
Now it's just a step to becoming a talented manager. After all, for him, understanding people and, using that understanding, managing them is practically the most important thing.
Attention, ambitious parents of future business empire founders! Music moves the heart, and a top manager's most formidable weapon is a disarming “nice guy” smile.
7. Musicians are soft-hearted and courageous at the same time.
According to psychologists, male musicians are sensual like women, and female musicians are steadfast and strong in spirit like men.
Music softens morals, but to succeed in it, one must be courageous. Attention, insightful parents expecting help and support in old age! Children who have studied music are compassionate and patient, and therefore more likely to offer their elderly parents that “glass of water.”
8. Music lessons teach you to “turn on command.”
Musicians are less afraid of the dreaded word “deadline.” At music school, you can't postpone a scale test or a class concert until tomorrow or a week later.
The artist's position on stage teaches one to be as prepared as possible “on demand,” and a child with such experience will not fail a serious exam, a job interview, or an important report.
Attention, anxious parents! Music lessons in childhood are the foundation for lifelong endurance and artistry.
9. Music lessons develop little “Caesars” who can do many things at once.
Music helps us navigate several simultaneous processes: for example, a sight-reading pianist does several things at once – remembers the past, looks to the future, and controls the present.
Music flows at its own pace, and the reader can't stop, rest, or catch their breath. Similarly, an air traffic controller, computer operator, or stockbroker monitors multiple screens and simultaneously listens to and transmits information on several phones.
Music teaches you to think and live in multiple directions. Attention, overwhelmed and tired parents! A musician child will have an easier time than you, navigating multiple paths in life and coming out on top in all of them.
10. And finally, music is the best way to success in life.
Why? See points 1-9. It's no wonder that many celebrities have a musical background:
– Agatha Christie wrote her first story about why she found it difficult to play the piano on stage;
– Condoleezza Rice, on the contrary, loves nothing more than to perform in public in her dazzling concert dress;
– Bill Clinton is sure that without the saxophone he would never have become president.
Look at successful people in any field and ask them if they played music as children, even briefly, even if only halfheartedly. Of course they did. And we have 10 reasons to follow their inspiring example.
D.K. Kirnarskaya – musicologist, vice-rector of the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music, music psychologist, professor, doctor of art history, doctor of psychological sciences; founder and scientific director of the production department of the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music (Russia), president of the ANO “Talents-XXI Century”
