A language is not so much taught but more practiced with the people who are better at language; music is also better learned like that.
However, when you are learning to speak, you are doing it with those who are already really good at it while when learning music you are stuck at the beginner’s class for a long time and then slowly move up as you get better. When learning your first language, to use the musical term, you are “jamming” with the professionals since the very beginning that you do not even realize that you are a beginner.
You are not made to sit in a corner and practice. You are never even corrected when you are wrong. When you learn a language, you remain free. You do not follow rules or a timeline. You learn it your way at your own pace. With the way music is taught at present, it takes years for you to find your own voice, but with language, you never lost it. Nobody ever robbed you of that. The ideal way to learn music is to learn it just the way you would learn your first language – without forcing, naturally.
When it comes to language, there is no particular age that you really start learning it. Whenever you heard it that is when it first started going into your mind. When you set up the environment for a child to learn music, he or she will naturally start learning it. There is no need to specially ask or teach them anything. Just like nobody ever told anyone that they need to start learning their language. They kept talking and the child followed.
One of the biggest mistakes that the teachers make is that they start teaching kids how to play an instrument before they understand music. You don’t teach a child how to spell before they start talking! In music, too many teachers teach the children the rules and the instruments first, before they feel the music. The same way a baby knows what it means when the mother raises the pitch of her voice versus the father lowering his voice. The feeling of music just needs to naturally get into a child rather than forcing it in with rules.
Every child is born musical. There is no purer music than the sound of a child’s voice after all.
Ever wonder how the pros memorize complex piano music? Go here to find out.
