Youngster playing his own tune on the piano

[Ruby]

Thanks for your input, Ruby. I agree he could gain a lot from learning all the basics - including reading notes and such - but as the teenager he is, he's not very keen on that full dedication. He says he wants to keep playing by "ear" and he also quit the piano lessons recently.
One thing I've learnt as a parent is that if you push to much it may have the opposite effect - two of my sons quit playing soccer partly due to this. You should only encourage them to have fun and if possible, introduce some new elements in their practicing as they progress.

May I ask how old your daughter is, I guess I should have added more basics when he was younger.

She’s 14 – they can take music as a subject at school and she was offered the opportunity of additional private piano lessons, having passed an audition - the only one who arrived for that audition with no sheet music in hand! :redface: Anyway – she is finding the theory and coaching helpful, especially as regards timing, so I am hoping she will embrace it all. In the meantime, she is also teaching herself guitar.

I would never force a child to have lessons if they didn’t want them, but my thinking is that it’s not a bad thing for kids to learn a discipline and interestingly, disciplines like dance and music are helpful with mathematical ability too. Of course they must have fun and enjoy themselves, but there’s an awful lot of instant gratification and over indulgence in our society IMHO which inevitably leads to dissatisfaction, ‘boredom’, short attention spans and a lack of imagination - the need to be constantly entertained. I may have what are considered very outdated views on certain things, but in my experience, kids respond fairly well to parameters, and personally, I feel that since these lessons are a privilege which not everyone is fortunate enough to have access to, I certainly expect to see some dedication ... even if that means being subjected to endless scales!! Lol!!