Can you give piano lessons to a 5 year old?

Question

My 3 year old son does nothing but listen to his music, sing, dance. Almost all day long. btw, I have musical talent and was in special advanced music program in High school. It runs in my family and I see that my 3 year old loves music and is very musical. When walking in park he picks up sticks saying they're instruments wanting us to form a band in the middle of a park. Anyways...

Can you give piano lessons to a 5 year old? Is that too young? I started piano lessons late, so I don't know.

Answer 1

I grew up with a piano in the living room and my earliest memories are sitting on the bench, pounding the keys.  My mother started teaching me the basics of playing the piano about age 6 and my first recital was at age 8... so I don't see anything wrong with teaching a child that young IF THEY ARE INTERESTED...

Answer 2

Yes! If your son wants to try and start sooner then I say go for it. His only setbacks are going to be his size and his willingness to practice. For his age, make sure he has familiar songs and enough of them so that he doesn't get board. If you play and sing with him, then he will probably have even more fun.

Answer 3

Yes, of course I can.

Seriously, a 5 year-old kid is not too young to start playing musical instruments, therefore to start learning how to play them.

Answer 4

i don't think it is to early, i think it is just the right age. then they will grow up with an advantage and will probably grow up to become a musical genius. like you i suppose.

i think that if they are interested then they should be allowed to start. people learn better when they are younger so he will probably do very well.

speaking as someone who started learning instruments about then i think it is the right thing to do, but only if he is interested. i don't recommend forcing him into anything or he will become unhappy and wont do very well.

if you make it really fun, and sing, dance and make it really enjoyable with familiar songs then your son will really enjoy it and want maybe to learn more instruments.

Answer 5

start him now.  i started music lessons at the age of 3 (i had pressuring asian parents) and it instilled with me a deep love of music.  however, maybe he doesnt want to play piano?  I personally hated piano after a few lessons, and i changed to violin, didnt like that either, so i changed to cello (i was 5 i think), which i was pretty content with.  i played cello for several years till i decided i wanted to play guitar in 5th grade.  i kept playing cello, but i added guitar, decided i wanted to play bass in 7th grade, played bass with jazz band for a while, switched back to guitar in 9th grade.  by the way RENT INSTRUMENTS!!! anything thats not a piano, rent.  well, you can buy guitars, because theyre not too expensive, but violins etc, rent, until your kid is serious.  but yeah, you should definitely let him choose his instrument.

by the way, if he chooses drums, you might end up wanting to kill yourself haha...actually thats not funny...but um you might be frustrated, but i recomend to let him keep going with it if he enjoys it.

im 18 now, and i'm going to go to college after my gap year, where the college has offered to pay for my music lessons (the college is USC)!  something good came out of all that practice.

Answer 6

Five is not to young.  I started taking lessons at about 4and 1/2 years old.  Learned enough about reading music and theory that from the age of 6-9 I also learned oboe, violin, and then went to upright bass at age 9.  Like another who answered on here.... I too didnt care for the piano in those early years.  

This is my opinion only... but... I feel its best to start someone on what they want to play... rather than be forced into an instrument.  Ive seen it time and time again where an instrument that a student has no interest in learning will just sit and collect dust.  Let them take lessons and play an instrument they are interested in.... more than likely they will become a proficient player.. then branch out to other instruments.

Hope this has been of some help.

Answer 7

of course, i started when i was 5 and ive been playing for 15 years now. My piano teacher used to tell me and my brother that starting at 5 was perfect because that is the same time one begins to read books and what not. I really don't know how that makes a difference, but that what he used to say..

Answer 8

that is the best time to start them off so he can be advanced and by the time he is 10 he'll be a proffesional and could go to very nice music colleges

Answer 9

There was a great program on 60 minutes this past week about a program in Venezuela.  They start the kids learning rhythm at 2 and on instruments at 4.  Not what I saw on 60 minutes -  but here is a story about them.  http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinam...

Answer 10

My Mom is a piano teacher with ~30 years experience. Her students start around 4.5 years old. That's mostly so that by the time they start music, they are able to read and count.Other than than there is no real need for an age restriction. Well, the other thing of course is that they should be mature enough to stick to an activity for at least half ah hour.