Learning Music at Home

I am a part of the homeshooling movement. What we, as a group, have done is to reject the idea that our children need a professionally-trained teacher in order to learn. And if you think much about it, all children learn from their parents without needing a "professional" to teach them.

Who taught your child to speak? I can almost guarantee that it was you. And I'll bet that you have taught your child dozens and dozens of other things - how to hold a fork, how to wash his hands, how to use the bathroom, and on and on.

So in homeschool, we just expand that. Now along with teaching my child how to use the potty, I also teach her how to hold her pencil and to read and how to use the scientific method. Now, there are things that I don't have the knowledge to teach them, and in those cases I will either educate myself or find someone else or a resource to help me.

What about teaching music at home? The problem with that these days is that so few of us actually learned music in a way that we could still retain as adults. What if our culture shifted to where the majority of the population became able to express themselves musically and to pass that on to their children? I'm not talking about a generation of concert pianists. I am talking about the average adult being able to sit down at a piano, or other instrument and just play for fun.

What a joyful thing that would be in American homes. Can you imagine the implications? How do we benefit from being able to express ourselves musically in a way that we feel good about? Emotional release? Stress-reduction? Increased intellectual abilities? What about the social implications? I know that I used to dream of the family standing around the piano singing Christmas carols. If we had a culture where most adults could express themselves musically this could happen.

I know, I'm preaching. And if this happens I will teach myself right out of a job. But I think our world would be a better place if the expectation were for each of us to be able to express ourselves musically, even in some small way.