<p>sax–that is so sad!!! One reason we picked the school system we did was the HUGE music program. 80% of the kids in the school are either in band, choir or dance–hard to single out who is the “geek” and who is not :D.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider other than whether a given child likes the instrument is also the genre of music being played. </p>
<p>As with my older cheesy hair metal fan HS classmates or moreso, hearing from boomer-aged electric guitar enthusiasts who recalled hating their music lessons because their parents forced them to play classical/jazz/big band standards while they wanted to play Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Beatles, or Jimi Hendrix…forcing them to play instruments/genres that aren’t the ones they are enthused(i.e. Stuff from the Lawrence Welk show seemed to be a common complaint from them) about is a good way to turn them off to those instruments/genres…sometimes well into their '60s as those guitarists demonstrate. </p>
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<p>True. Unfortunately, the ones common in my childhood/adolescence tended towards big hair, spandex, cheesy themes like love ballads, and the like. A reason why I wasn’t into it at the time and even nowadays when I can enjoy some of it…can’t really take it that seriously. </p>
<p>The later stuff with Cookie Monster vocals isn’t much better IMO. No, wait…I shouldn’t be insulting the Cookie Monster like that. :)</p>
<p>Sax…at our middle and high schools, band was considered a popular thing to be in. Many of the best athletes, artists, musicians, student council folks, and students from all levels of academic skill…were in the bands. It was a huge testament to the band directors who did really great things that other kids wanted to do as well!</p>
<p>Cobrat you claim to be long past adolescence so come on and join us in the 21st century! Some of the music is great. You’ll have a blast! Step awayyyy from high school. It’s time.</p>
<p>You have to find out why he’s not practicing. If you can talk about things with him, ask. It may be it takes him a while to get into it so he doesn’t want to start. You can help that by sitting down and planning with him because 12 year olds aren’t usually good at that. It may be he hears a lot of mistakes or he gets frustrated. You address that differently. One method is for him to work on x until he reaches that point and then switch to something very different, maybe improv, maybe working on tone, maybe playing some pop song, etc. Many players get stuck feeling it’s too much like beating the head against the wall. It might be that he feels he’s doing enough for what he’s being taught. That might require getting him something else to work on, maybe through a talk with the teacher. It could be something more challenging that he can piece through on his own or something more fun. It might even be that he doesn’t want to invest more without understanding why it matters to you.</p>
<p>In other words, internal motivation is often hampered by things which are hard to say, even to yourself. If you can help him figure these out, then you can develop strategies to assist.</p>
<p>I am the OP. I appreciate all your great ideas. This child chose viola at the band and orchestra music try-ons for middle school. I was surprised but supportive. He had never really been exposed to classical music before ( I know, bad parents, but he is the 5th of 6 children). We’re just wading into this. I got him an MP3 player for Christmas and put some classical music “hits” on it. He is loving it. How many times has he played our Nutcracker CD this month?! OMG! Even I, infatuated with ballet in my youth, am sick of it! We’ll see how far this goes. At least with viola he doesn’t seem “too late” as he probably would be with violin. He is the latest of my kids to take me for a wild ride. ;)</p>
<p>Apollo that’s awesome! </p>
<p>Reminds me of the hours of picture books and fiction I read to my son only to find out he was longing for pure science and facts books. He always fell asleep reading the sesame street dictionary as a preschooler. I should have taken the hint.</p>
<p>Just to clarify our situation. The middle school cool factor did knock a bunch of kids out but the high school program was solid.</p>
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<p>I am enjoying music. Having the explosion of Indie bands, internet, and youtube has allowed me to explore different genres of music from many parts of the world/historical eras without having to be prompted by parents/older folks. In many ways, the younger generations are blessed in this respect. </p>
<p>Am just using cases from my own adolescence and some online/IRL guitarist friends in their 60’s and 70’s who all recounted being forced by their parents to play Lawrence Welk tunes in an era of rock n’ roll to illustrate how careful parents need to be about forcing their own musical instrument/genre preferences on their kids. </p>
<p>My basic point is that unless the kids also happen to like music parents like, forcing them to play “parents’/old people’s music” as they put it was a big turnoff for them and would sometimes engender a hatred of those very genres for decades. </p>
<p>As I was free of that for the most part*, I can actually enjoy most forms of music without any of the baggage they or HS classmates forced to practice instruments they didn’t like carry long past adolescence. </p>
<p>Sometimes, even my parents and older friends(60’s and up) are surprised I actually enjoy listening to “past musical genres” like big band(Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, etc) or Chinese pop music from the 1930’s(Check out Zhou Xuan)…stuff many folks of my parents’ age find “too old fashioned”. A large part of that was, however, finding it out for myself rather than having it forced on me as with the boomer aged guitarists I’ve chatted with or HS classmates. </p>
<p>Some in the former group are still so traumatized that any mention of “Lawrence Welk” will result in a string of curses. Sad as when I caught a few episodes, it may be cheesy at times…but there were some good stuff too. </p>
<p>I also found it interesting how the alternative history themed satirical movie CSA: The Confederate States of America made a satirical reference to the Lawrence Welk show.</p>
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<li>I went through a brief anti-classical music phase in HS because everyone I knew who loved classical music in HS or among older relations were rank snobs of the worst sort. Thankfully, the conservatory kids showed me that they were much more open-minded about loving other genres of music as opposed to those who felt “Classical is the greatest evah and you’re revealing your lack of education and cultural refinement for liking anything else…especially rock n roll”. Amusingly enough, I’ve been having some friendly arguments with an older friend in her 80’s because she regards any music other than classical and some early forms of jazz derisively as “pop music”.</li>
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I think DS benefited greatly because of this. It appears that his interests span a wide variety of genres of music, new and old, because of the easy access to any kind of music online.</p>
<p>In one college admission interview years ago, it happened there was no interviewee after him. The interviewer was talking to him for almost 3 hours because they were talking about some music both of them loved. I even did not know whether our home had any music (in CD) with that genre. It appears both of them were having funs talking about what they love.</p>
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<p>This was brought home just a few days ago when I was looking up the following Civil War tune:</p>
<p>[Marching</a> through Georgia - Henry Clay Work (1865) - YouTube](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSpZCTWsqjw]Marching”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSpZCTWsqjw)</p>
<p>and then finding the Japanese came up with their own interpretation of the tune to new lyrics here:</p>
<p>[???Tokyo_bushi</a> (Marching Through Georgia) Enka - YouTube](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn4AW8wgjoA]???Tokyo_bushi”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn4AW8wgjoA)</p>
<p>and a more modern version in a recent anime series with English subtitles:</p>
<p>[Taisho</a> Extra - YouTube](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoH5x_xZDcA]Taisho”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoH5x_xZDcA)</p>
<p>thumper1–same at our school–the star football player, got offers from schools all over the country, was a “band geek”-best at site for state solo competitions several times and now in his free time studies opera. He’s the kid I secretly want my DD to marry :D.</p>
<p>^ DS said (when he was still an UG) the best Jazz player at his school was a kid whose parents or the kid’s close relatives are also excellent Jazz players.</p>
<p>Is there any close family member in the family of this band geek/football player who happens to very much into (any kind of) music?</p>
<p>DS essentially self-taught many instruments, except for the two instruments we forced on him (violin and piano - both for 10+ years) in his younger years. He once jokingly said as long as an instrument has some strings on it, he would try to play it. It appears recently he even tried his hands on the drum sets (even though I think he could not afford the time, the money and the space. He got an electronic drum pad to be used with his electronic sofware on the computer to wet his appetite a little bit, even though he prefers to have access to a true drum set.)</p>
<p>Back to the topic on “practicing”, at least in our case, after DS had picked up his own instrument (rather than the instruments we picked up for him), practicing on the instrument which he picked all of a sudden became his leisure time for-fun activity rather than “work”: the more, the better.</p>
<p>Classical music can be cool, too. To wit:
[Vivaldi's</a> Spring (live dubstep-classical remix) - SIC InC - YouTube](<a href=“Vivaldi's Spring (live dubstep-classical remix) - SIC InC - YouTube”>Vivaldi's Spring (live dubstep-classical remix) - SIC InC - YouTube)</p>
<p>mcat2–not really. His siblings are/were in band. I know his mom did not grow up playing an instrument, not sure about his dad. He is just an exceptionally talented kid in all walks of life (attending Harvard right now, turned down all the other Ivy’s to go there along with Stanford and Notre Dame too). He’s everyone’s dream son-in-law :D.</p>