Gut-Punch Moment: The Day My Daughter Told Me I Made Violin a Chore

A little background: I’m one of those parents who gets the rare chance to literally have a do-over. I have 3 kids: An 18-year-old, a 16-year-old, and a 3-year-old. And I’m learning how much I really messed up the first time around.

Not to say I did everything wrong, but there is a whole lot I could have done better. And one of those things is how I approached music with my older two. My middle child (who for 13 years was my youngest) made that abundantly clear when she said “you made violin a chore.”

Ouch. But, she’s right.

| I approached teaching her violin the way I thought was best. Tell her what to do, show her what to do, and correct her when she got it wrong.

But, that was my mistake:

I told her what to do.

I showed her what to do.

I corrected her.

I..I..I..

I didn’t let her own the process at all.

It’s so easy to fall into this trap as a music teacher, because our entire industry is built on pursuing perfection. If anyone is better than us, then somehow we feel like we aren’t good enough. And by extension, if someone else’s kids are better than ours, then ours aren’t enough. 

| Somehow we’ve taken an art that is so inherently human that it oozes from the heart of babies, and turned it into a tool to measure our worth.

We all feel the pressure. When parents sit in on lessons, and when our students perform at recitals, and when we take students to contest. It’s all compete, compare, measure.

When we transform music education into a competition, our students become pawns in a game rather than artists. In our desire to make sure they perform well, we remove from them the very ownership of their art. And when they no longer own that art, they have no reason outside of compliance to want to work to perfect it.

So, how do we reset? What’s the do-over?

| Connection must come before correction.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t teach our students how to perform better. But, we have to let them connect first.

Connect with the instrument– 

Let them feel it, play it, and experiment with it. Let it be messy for a while.

Connect with peers- 

Give them opportunities to make music with others, and play with others in lessons. The studio has to feel like family.

Connect with their teacher-

Students need to trust that you value them as a person, and that you want to amplify their voice.

When we let connection come first, and resist the urge to help our kids get everything *right* from the beginning, we give space for the artist to grow. And that, friends, is the measure of a true musician.