It is well documented that some well known pipers were actually forced to learn to play the pipes , most famously Paddy Keenan .Gay McKeown,s two son’s Conor and Sean were both coerced into playing the pipes
In fact Sean readily admits he hated the pipes when he was younger and was called in from playing football when it was time to practice . He is now a fine piper, (national champion at least once) and is very thankful he was made practice.
With this in mind do you think it’s OK to gently persuade your children to play the pipes and if they show any kind of aptitude at all to maybe push them a bit harder
RORY
That’s a tough one. I’m not an experienced father yet - daughter is only 6 weeks old - but I would like her to become interested in piping too. I started playing trumpet because I was sort of exposed to it at a young age, but then as I lost interest during my high school years my father used to send me back to my room if I hadn’t done at least 30mins practice. Looking back, I’m not sorry I stopped the trumpet, but I am sorry I didn’t continue with the piano - perhaps if someone was forcing me to practice more I would be a fine pianist by now.
My mum - an Estonian - used to try and teach my older sister to speak Estonian at a young age. Because me sister refused to learn it after a few months, mum didn’t bother thrying to teach the rest of us. We probably wouldn’t have learnt it either, but now I regret that I never had any exposure to that fine and bloody difficult language.
It’s one of life’s ironies - we as children and adolescents have the responsibility of making choices whether we realise it or not that can influence greatly what we do in our adult lives, yet immaturity and inexpeience prevent us from making informed choices. If only I had not rejected the offer of a Watchmaking/jeweller apprenticeship!!! I had a part time job on Saturday mornings helpng a watchmaker - I did Mantle, Cuckoo, Grandfather, Baby Ben clocks and the like. But my heart at that time was set in going to university. Now I’m kicking myself for passing up on that opportunity. Now if only someone with a bit of sense, experience and foresight had sat me down and told me in no uncertain terms that I was passing up on a grand opportunity, perhaps I’d be in a much better situation now rather than 4 yrs university followed by 5 years unemployment.
Woops, I’m rambling and quickly going off on the tangent. What I’m trying to say is, to force or not to force is a question that is not easily answered.
I’d say - gentle persuasion, lots of exposure to the music, take them to a session when they’re a tad older, don’t become a ‘football parent’ - i.e, trying to live out your own dreams through your child, ecnourage them to practice, even to the point of sending them back to their room if they haven;t done enough, and let the rest take its own natural path. Don’t get angry if they really don’t want to play; who knows, it may only be a temporary hiatus. If it doesn’t involve sitting in front of the idiot box with a Playstation or equivalent, then kids these days have an attention span of 5 minutes.
Cheers,
DavidG
I think if a child shows some aptitude and basic (if not always obvious) enjoyment for doing something then a parent might help them out by saying"It’s practice time now." and not taking no for an answer.
If it becomes a yelling situation, I would not go for that. Although I had wanted to learn to play the piano, my mom got tired of nagging at me to practice. I really cannot blame her. I learned a certain amount and that has been very helpful for me. I am sure that had she nagged at me for another ten years I would not have ended up appreciating it nor would I have been a great pianist. And think of her life.
I believe that a musical education is as important as English (add your own language) or maths to creating a complete adult. (Social skills don’t usually count with pipers. 
)
Luckily my son (5 years old) believes that playing an instrument is just part of what people do. (He has to put up with me piping away and my partner singing in a choir.)
He will shortly start violin lessons (his choice) but he will also learn whistle, guitar etc. from just having them around the house.
Another stroke of luck is he has forgotten that the first instrument he wanted to play was the banjo.
If he wants to play pipes he can, it may turn out that he wants to paint or write…great!! As long as he has a creative side I will be happy and hopefully so will he.
David
I keep looking at the Suzuki school for teaching music to young children. This involves a tremendous amount of time invested by the parent as well as the child. Very many kids, even those who show the greatest aptitude, will drop music when they hit adolesence and not take it up again, but on the positive side, they will have learned how to learn, have great study habits, and usually go on to do well in higher education. So was it worth it?
Perhaps this has more to do with the individual child. If music lessons/practise becomes a point of defiance, maybe its best to just let it drop. A parent has an obligation to provide possibilities to a child, but at some point it is up to the child to make some choices too, and then live with the outcome.
djm
Yes, to a point. I think a middle ground where the child has to take lessons and do practice for a fixed amount of time, perhaps one year, perhaps two or three. These days a bargaining chip might have to be used to get the child to be motivated.
Some children will always so “no” to extra activities. Only the exceptional child will like practicing. Most children have no idea what is involved or if he/she will like. Being a parent involves making a child do many things he/she does not like. If the parent is musical, it would be a shame not to try to pass at least a little of that down to the next generation.
My almost 5 yr. old daughter will start violin soon as well. She will not leave me alone until this happens. I think that the ones who grow up in a musical environment will most likely play something as a matter of course (they may rebel later) and a little reenforcement and encouragement should suffice. Too much nagging and they’ll grow away from it. If they are destined for “great things” they’ll make it happen on their own terms.
I was cajoled into piano, but they didn’t get me to do it until I was already around 13. Music should be started much younger. I wish they had pushed me, but I believe my father’s response wouldbe that I was too stubborn to have been made to do anything.
If the child has the emotional stability for it, formal competition (where a trained judge offers feedback) helps a lot. I find this helps for me too, or at least having a performance schedule so I know I had better practice. Either a performance schedule or competitions or both will help the parent give the child a reason to obey a fairly strict practice schedule.
One of my GHB students got freaked out by only placing 6th or 7th and quit competing. he still excels, though, because he loves the instrument and he is particularly skilled. (He suffers from a syndrome I notice in gifted and talented kids in school [I’m a teacher]: they don’t have to work for much, so sometimes when they are faced with a challenge they crumble)
Another of my GHB students is into just about everything: violin lessons, ballet lessons, opera camp, baseball little league, I forget what else. His progress is slow and his mother has to force him to practice, with some conflict involved. Not sure that’s ideal.
Kids work a lot on simple reward system; psychologically on pain vs. pleasure. They lack the ability (probably biochemcially) to accept short-term discomfort for long-term gain (hence my constant struggle to get them to turn in homework). There is a “workout” aspect to being a good musician that is hard for kids to get themselves into. (I remember long debates with my piano teacher about learning scales).
Parents who can create a system of reward for practice time will have the most success. I believe in “carrot and stick” management, so a small penalty for not practicing will also help. One suggestion would be to have the kids earn ‘points’ for every hour of practice and let them “spend” their points on something they like (although as I said, some more immediate reward is most helpful. praise goes a long way). This can start teaching them to enjoy short-term suffering for long-term gain and get them to practice with minor conflict.
I might also suggest establishing something before adolescence hits. Once the onset of puberty, they revert to a more primate primitive mode that will frustrate most attempts to get them to listen to us at all. 
Dave Jones
Force bad.
One of the most interesting stories I have heard about getting a kid to learn the pipes was of strictly forbidding him to touch Papa’s pipes. While dad was off in the pits, Junior would pull the pipes out from under the bed and figure out how they worked. Stolen waters, etc.
Dave, good ideas! From some of the science programs I see on tv into brain research, they are saying that that portion of the brain that has the ability to do long-term planning, to think in terms of the big picture, doesn’t really develop until we are in our twenties. That is research is then being used to explain why trying to reason with kids and teens is pointless. They can’t see it; aren’t equipped to see it.
I am wondering too about “guilty by association”. I have noticed several times in interviews with up-and-coming musicians in Ireland that they talk about all the festivals and competitions they were brought to every weekend, and hanging around other kids who play, and how they all get to know each other through these venues. Is it reasonable to expect that if your kids are constantly exposed to people playing instruments, not just at home and not just adults, but lots of other kids playing too, that a child will become more self-motivated just to fit in with that environment. In other words, constant exposure to kids playing music will be more condusive to getting your own child to want to participate.
djm
As a kid, I was forced to practice the piano for 3 hours a day, the viola for 1 hour and the guitar for 1 hour. I remember hating it at the time… until I discovered I was actually learning how to play those things, and pretty well at that. Eventually, I was forced to put the instruments down and do chores or homework or anything as long as it wasn’t musical.
Looking back, I can’t say that being forced to practice was a good or a bad thing, but I will say that once I took over the ‘reigns’ with music, there was no stopping me.
If a child shows enthusiasm for any insrument, they ought to be encouraged to play and supported (perhaps firmly so at times) when it becomes difficult. I feel it is important for the child to learn that to get where they want to be musically (or in any aspect of life for that matter), they have to work at it and not quit simply because it’s tough. I think that the trick may be knowing where to draw the line between encouragement and tyranny.
edited for grammar issues
The “carrot” works best with my kids, but I think you have to work with each kid to understand what motivates them.
Kids are very adicted to computers (good thing we adults don’t spend too much time on the internet! 
)…so before my daughter can get on the computer she has to practice her harp.
-gary
This reminds me of something … oh yeah!:
Not even 3 yet and already she can play better than me.
Blues harp??
You’ll have to check the new CD the Mckeown are launching next week if it worked out.
Seriously though, they have to go their own way, you can only create an atmosphere where music is associated with good things and hope it will create an interest. Once they go though you do need to find a way to keep them practicing in most cases. Which may involve some arm twisting and coercing.
My young fellow did the wise thing, he went for the whistle and the concertina. I wouldn’t recommend any child starting the pipes unless they were seriously interested.
Part of me wishes I had started pipes earlier and that my parents had made me do it. Part of me is glad I didn’t. I started French horn in first grade and my parents were constantly nagging at me to practice. Subsequently I liked the horn less and less and played it less and less until I finally quit. I tried joining a couple bands, and found it incredibly difficult to follow my part and stay with the rest of the band. I also have fond memories of my French horn teacher giving me a challenging piece of music to work on, and I’d make a weak attempt at learning it, decide it was hard, and back off. Needless to say, I felt like the French horn was going nowhere. Would the same thing have happened with the pipes if I had started too young? Who knows.
I also started choir in the ninth grade, had fun, took like two voice lessons with the idea that I might be able to get into the upper-level choirs at my high school, and found out that singing was kinda hard. I stayed in choir, but did no outside work on it. I was a decent singer when I had twenty people around me singing the same note I was singing. Then sophomore year of college I helped start an a cappella group on campus and found out that I could not stay on key to save my life when I was the only person singing that part.
Maybe I’ll be a better piper for starting later when I had the internal motivation to work really hard at it. I’m picking up piping technique faster than I ever picked up French horn technique and even after five months, I’m a far better piper than I was a cappella singer (which ain’t saying much for my a cappella 
). Those eight years struggling on the horn and five in choir had me convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that I was musically challenged and would never be vaguely competent on any instrument. Last year hung out with Conor McKeown a little bit (the funny part of that is that I had no clue who he was. Then I started getting sucked deeper and deeper into the piping world and realized it and was like, “Oh, wow.. was I ever CLUELESS”). He said if I wanted to play, I should play, and I told him that I was probably too musically challenged to ever play an instrument like pipes. But the pipes are proving me wrong.
My point is that it depends on the kid, the instrument, the circumstances, etc. Forcing your kids to play instruments might further their career into becoming Paddy Keenan. Then again, it might not.
Just about everything should be tried, including parental insistence, along the way. I think that competition is appropriate for kids - ANYTHING to get them to the critical stage where they enjoy and seek out the music themselves.
Competing in music as an adult is just silliness.
Even if your son is not a piper, this photo should be the next cover of An Píobaire.
Mukade
An homage to photos of Seamus Ennis and Al Purcell.
Three of my four children (ages 12, 11 and 9) are playing the fiddle (in the schiool orchestra as well) and I have had to both push and motivate them. We have a chart with their names on it (and mine) listing all the tunes that each of us know how to play. Each week on Friday night we have a family movie night (FMN) where i select an old classic B/W or a modern but acceptible movie rented from blockbuster or from the local library. They expect popcorn or ice cream and look forward to the event every week. They earn the right to attend (vs going to bed) by learning (memorizing) a new tune each week (accept when they are practicing peices for the schools orchestra concert). If they don’t learn as well as recap the tunes that they have learned in the past four weeks, they go to bed instead (normal time) of staying up late. So far only one incident of them (two of three) not making it to the FMN. It still requires us pushing them to not procrastinate and work on a tune early in the week. Really interestg reinforcment of having them exposed to tunes, in my case, me playing my pipes, has made it really easy for them to pick up the tunes that I play because they have heard me playing those tunes for so long that they had them in there heads already. Another reinforcement we have, combined with family reading club, is that my children receive no weekly allowance on money. For every book that they read (excluding those required by school), they receive points depending on the books difficulty, length and literature value (I am the judge!). Each point is worth 25 cents. Initially, the points were only permitted to be redeemed at Barnes and Noble for more books (real sneaky but they loved picking out their own books), now I let them use that money for vacation spending money (they suddenly have become real choosey about what junk they want!) and Christmas shopping. We expanded the point system to give them ten points for each Irish tune that they learn as well. Thery really pay attention to the chart and have been getting into growing their reperoir. I told them that if they catch up to me, that I would take them to the local amusement park with a few friends. Worth the investment, and it is nice to see them smile when they play. They did cry when they went to bed without FMN though.
My big quagmire is that, while I am very please with their progress on the fiddle and the tunes that they are picking up, and the sessions in the den that we have now, I still would like at least one or two of them to play the pipes (want mine to go to them when I am dead in 50 years or so). Do I pull them off the fiddle to practice the pipes or do I double them up practicing both?
My fourth child is severly autistic but loves music and maybe I can work with him when he gets big enough to teach starting with the whistle (very challenging) and eventually the pipes. I pray that he finds something like music to make a life for him. Another good reason for the whole family knowing how to play so they can have a good reason to stay in his life when they grow up.
Neil