When Should A Child Start Piano?
“When Should a child start piano?” I get asked this questions a lot. Personally, I started at 6 and was more than ready, I loved it. True, I hated to practice as I got older and would make my parents twist my arm, but it had nothing to do with not liking to play, it had more to do with my sibling whining about the fact that I made mistakes. Of course I made mistakes, that’s why I was practicing. But at 6 I took to it right away and played all of the time.
For most kids I would say you need to gauge it by their activity level, attention span, and interest. If a child is going to be a prodigy, you probably will know it before you even get them a piano. If a child has ADD it may be hard to get them to focus. All young children will have a harder time focusing so shorter lessons are recommended until the children are 7 years or older. But I would say, anywhere from 5 on up is a great time to start.
I started teaching my daughter earlier than 5, and she liked it, but it was hard to stick with it until she got a little earlier. Now that she is we can get more structured lessons going and she will learn more because of that.
Start with 15 minute lessons for children under 7 and then gradually increase to 30-45 minutes depending on the child. With homeschool lessons you even have the luxury of splitting the lesson up into two pieces if you find that they are getting antsy. But 15 minutes is a great start for any child of 5, they can do it and they usually are enthralled.
Some piano teachers have a bare minimum of lesson time so if you find it difficult to find a teacher who would teach for only 15 minutes, start with learning piano from home until they get older. They can learn a lot in that time and be even more prepared for regular lessons later on. Also, this will help you to know whether or not they actually like the piano – an important thing if you are going to spend money on lessons since they can be expensive.
I hope this helps you decide, please drop me any questions you might have.