As you know general education is very valuable. General education becomes more profound and effective when your child starts taking music lessons. However, I am not talking about music lessons taken in a regular public school curriculum. Instead, I would like to talk about private instruction, where children work one-on-one with a professional music teacher and are taught how to master music.  

In order to find out about the advantages of playing musical instruments, all you have to do is read a few articles on how the small motor skills influence the development of a child. Besides improving his/her ability to speak, it also stimulates his/her abilities in many other ways. Some of these can be noticed at first glance. 

So, let’s say that you agree that music lessons will greatly benefit your child. Moreover, all children to some extent like music and each one is ready for musical education in their own time. Your role as a parent is to notice your child’s interest in music and help them prepare for the lessons and organize the educational process. Participation in motivating and supporting his/her interest in music lessons is important.  

If you were to make the teacher responsible for your child learning how to master music, there is definitely a ninety-nine percent chance out of a hundred you would encounter problems during the course of the music lessons. You would spend your time reminding your child to do his/her homework and convincing him/her how important homework is. 

Teaching your child how to master music could involve giving them unpleasant lectures about their responsibility in the learning process. However, there is some good news. You are not alone. This happens to most parents who know nothing about musical education. It has also happened to those parents who had a similar experience during their own childhood. This happens because parents do not have special musical education.  

I do not mean that moms and dads have to know how to read music although this would be great. I am talking about the basic issues parents encounter preparing their child for music lessons themselves. One example of an issue is how to make a regular child into a musical child. As long as a family has basic knowledge and resources they should be able to develop a child’s musical ear as long as the child was born without any hearing impediments. If the child has good hearing there is almost a one hundred percent guarantee that with the parents help the child will develop a musical ear. Even parents with no musical talents can help their child become a musician. 

How can a parent learn to assist their child in his/her musical education? Reading and learning about other people’s experiences of which a few examples can be found in the book “Voices of our children”. This book contains real life stories which serve as examples. You can read and learn from other people’s experiences! It is easy and informative! 

Let’s say you got lucky and it is clear that your child is musically inclined. Now your job is to find out the level of his/her musical abilities. The first thing most parents do in this case is start looking for a music teacher who’d tell them that their child is meant to be a musician. This is an absolutely a right and sound decision and nobody is going to argue with you.  

The next step is to find a good music teacher and buy (or rent) a musical instrument. You may say this is all fine and good, but what does the musical education for parents have to do with all this? What do you mean by this? Everyone knows that in order for a child to learn music all you need is a good specialist and the parent’s job is to find a good specialist and pay for the lessons! You are partially right but don’t be in a hurry to rush to any conclusions. Now we’ll take a little break from the subject of teaching a child how to master music. We will come back to it later, because from this moment on everything that happens to your child deserves close attention and discussion.