(I know there is a very similar topic in the forums atm- have read the other posts and found them really useful. I'm posting this partly because my child is younger and partly because its a different instrument involved and so might have different issues. Hope this is ok)

Ok, my son is 7 1/2 and has been learning piano for around 6 months.

He is adamant that he wants to give up.

He likes his teacher (she also runs the community choir he is part of). I've had lessons with her in the past and I'm pretty confident that she is both a good teacher and a good match for him (she has a 7 year old boy of her own so knows the score)

He has hit a bit of a slow patch but this has happened before and its been ok. Also, because he is homeschooled I am quite used to him hitting hurdles and between us getting over them.

There is a slightly unfortunate situation whereby his (22 months) younger sister is moving faster than him. To be fair though she did start at the same time as him, she just took a bit longer to get going because of her age. I suspect she's been benefiting from hearing him play the music first, and she might actually slow down to the same place now they are pretty much on the same pieces.

There are issues with his bass clef reading, which I'm working on with him.

He is absolutely not a child who picks stuff up and puts it down, or who would give up 6 months lessons on a whim. If he says he wants to give up, its because he really does want to give up. Its not because he is struggling with one piece.

The best I can get out of him is that he wants to concentrate on the violin, which he has also fairly recently started having serious lessons on (he did a year of suzuki kind of pre-lessons, if that makes sense). He's started playing in an orchestra and an irish folk thing and all in all there's a fair bit of violin going on for him. He also just doesn't seem to like the piano as much atm.

I don't want to force him to play, neither do I really want him to just stop just like that.

Any thoughts? Am wondering if a break might do him good.

Seems like a no-brainer to me. You have pushed on before through slow periods on the piano, and he is not asking to give up music, just this instrument. Definitely don?t push it, let him have a break and encourage him to enjoy his music-making on the violin. Let him come back to piano if and when he wants to.

oh he's not going to give up music, he doesn't want to do that. He wants to concentrate on violin I think.

I'm just trying to decide whether a break is ok or if I should push him through it.

Seven and a half is still very young. Time is on his side. Why wouldn't it be OK to take a break? My daughter didn't start piano at all until she was eleven and a half, and while she'll never be a concert pianist she's made quick progress with the benefit of lots of other music behind her. So.. if he wants to come back to it later, he'll probably find he makes similarly fast progress having focussed, for now, on his violin.

You know your son best and you say he's not the sort to give things up on a whim. The violin is a wonderful instrument for a sociable child and it probably looks a lot more fun to your son than the piano at the moment.

What I would suggest (jump in here, more musical folk, if I'm talking through my hat) is that you get him to practise the violin in the same room as the piano and encourage him to check his tuning by playing melodies on the piano. My daughter plays piano and violin and she does this - and often ends up improvising left hand chords etc that go with it. If he's musical, and there's a piano in the house, he's not going to ignore it for long but it might be good for him to let it take a backseat for a while so he doesn't feel he's having to compete with his little sister.

how wonderful, he might end up playing the violin accompanied by his sister on the piano one day

Not sure about this one. DS has been having piano lessons for about three months now and because he has started quite late he has made quick progress however he has now hit a wall and is feeling frustrated at how slowly he is progressing. I believe this is exacerbated by the fact that he has picked up other instruments with more speed so has not developed the patience to cope when things get difficult. Maybe if I'd insisted he kept up lessons after a brief trial period at 7 then it may have helped all areas of his musicianship and developed perseverance.

Knowing what I know now I would have prioritised the piano above all other instruments but then at 7 I never would have expected that he would have been a chorister or gained so much from music.

I can see both sides here. Fillyjonk, you say you do not want your son to stop piano "just like that". Because he's home schooled, your approach to your son's wanting to stop piano is quite important - in 3 months time he may decide he wants to stop Maths or Reading! He is quite young to be determining his own learning, and may not make any distinction between compusory school subjects and music. Boys can be quite headstrong, and it's just possible that he is testing the water to see whether you will cave in.

If you feel that at the moment it's important for your son to carry on with piano, it could be a good time to establish the principle that sometimes it's good for us to persevere even if we don't really want to. If you take this approach, give your son a get-out, e.g. "I would like you to continue for another 6 months on piano, because it will give you different musical skills from violin, but if you want to give it up after that, we will consider it."

On the other hand, if you feel a break would do him good, make it clear to him that it's your decision, e.g "Perhaps you are a little young for more piano at the moment. We'll think about resuming lessons in a year's time." This will make it clear that you still feel piano is important, and that although you've taken his feelings into account it's your decision rather than your son's to stop for now.

Best of luck whatever you decide.

We have some things that are not negotiable - learning the piano, reading, writing etc, and some which are, such as dancing, tidying bedrooms (I'm not all that house proud) etc. I'd have willingly given up piano at every hurdle as a child but I'm very glad now that I wasn't allowed to.

I think my parents must have had the same approach, as I don't ever remember it being an option to give up. I took the same approach with my two, but acceded to the very verbal statements of DS2 who made it very clear to the piano teacher that he was not remotely interested in what she had to offer. To be fair to him he came up trumps on the instrument he chose for himself (euphonium) and has worked like stink to get to Grade 4 in 2 and a half years. After 18 months of badgering by him we have just acceded again to his request to learn the drums - some children just know what makes them tick and deliver on their promises.

On the flip side, DS1 has stuck with piano for 4 years despite regular statements that he wants to stop lessons and concentrate on clarinet/sax. Closer analysis with him reveals that he loves being able to play but finds practising hard (Doh! don't we all...), and he has enough wit to connect the need to do the latter to achieve the former. However as he is a normal 10 year old, not a musical saint our salvation has been a receptive teacher. She has arrived at our house on many occasions to discover that rather than plugging on with the Bach she gave him he has instead attacked something completely different - Bananas in Pyjamas, Coldplay or a bit of ragtime, or almost anything.

Her approach has been to embrace the fact that he is still playing and to go with it, finding teaching points in everything he attempts, whilst slipping in some choice and sensible repertoire amongst it all by stealth. Result - a broader musical education and a child who is still playing and believes that almost anything is worth a try. Hoorah!

The point, in relation to the OP is that what is or isn't the right thing to do depends on who your child is, and what makes them tick, and only you can really judge that. However I would agree with others above that flogging the unwilling musician is a recipe for misery and conflict. Worth exploring whether the key to the problem is another instrument or coming at the problem a different way through the ingenuity of a creative teacher though... 6 months isn't that long to have been learning, and an imaginative teacher might be able to find lots of gratifying stuff to tackle that gives him completely different repertoire from little sister?

I don't like the "too young" line. How about something like "Perhaps your violin activities would benefit from having more of your time for a while"? However, if you want him to carry on for the moment on I would definitely recommend talking to the teacher immediately about giving him completely different music from his sister. I can't think of anything to recommend using the same music with siblings except the cost of buying the extra books. There's a major risk that the second one will never learn to sight-read accurately.

Our piano teacher has only ever very reluctantly let more than one brother play the same piece or even from the same book. If you've got one zooming up behind an older one it's certainly not helpful.

I had a similar situation a few years ago, although my son was around 10 I think, and had been playing the piano for 5 years. He had started to play the flute on his 9th birthday and had taken to it like a duck to water. Here we had the competition that it was me Mum that was catching up with him and he didn't seem to like that. I let him give up although I was concerned about the 5 years that had been invested in the piano.

Now he is on the piano all the time, he doesn't have lessons, but he is playing by ear and improvises the harmony, He can play any tune he sets his mind to. Like someone earlier said about using the piano for tuning, my son uses the piano to start off his flute and then picks up the flute and plays that.

I know that I made the right decision as he still loves his music and in his own time he moved back to the piano. One day I hope that he will have lessons again, but this time I think he will need a different teacher as he is more into the improviisation on the piano than classical.

Good luck, I wouldn't hesitate about letting your son give up, he has only been doing it for 6 months and at this stage the piano may not be for him. Let him concentrate on his violin, sounds like he is having a great time with it.

It seems to me that having tried both instruments this little boy has decided which instrument he would like to play, violin. I would allow him to stop the piano but make it clear that he has the option to go back to piano lessons in the future if that is what he decides. At least then he can spend more time with the instrument he is passionate about and will probably even progress more quickly with just the one instrument to concentrate on.

Talking of siblings on the same instrument...in retrospect, I really regret that Airman and Viohazard started on the same instrument. It was Viohazard (younger) who wanted to play the violin and was fascinated with music, I was not even anticipating that Airman would be interested, and had thought of finding him a "making things" activity (which we did, and which he was predictably passionate about).

The two boys had always done everything together, and they had no thought of violin being any different. I thought Airman might lose interest fairly soon, so I didn't object. But even though. Airman was older and learned to read music faster, and played his pieces more accurately...Viohazard could play anything he heard, etc etc etc. Their teacher began to lose his temper with Airman, and I finally moved him to another teacher, who had the sense to give him a different book and praise him extravagantly for his musicreading skills and accurate playing.

But. I wish I had encouraged Airman to pick his own instrument. I WISH I HADN'T LET THEM START AT THE SAME TIME ON THE SAME INSTRUMENT!!!! Airman would have really enjoyed piano, I'm sure....

My 11yo daughter is about to stop piano lessons, mainly because she learns at our county academy which is sadly closing at the end of this summer term, but it has been clear for some time that she doesn't particularly enjoy the lessons, but does enjoy playing on her own at home. She is quite good at it, but finds the practising difficult and frustrating, so different to the violin which comes so naturally, and to be fair it is a very different instrument.

The piano has always been an "also-ran" for her, which her teacher accepts, although it must be hard for him! Violin is her passion, closely followed by viola. She's learned piano for 2 years and it about to take G3, and she grudgingly admits how useful keyboard skills are, huge help with G5 theory and for chords and cadences in the fast approaching aural for her G7 violin exam (eek!). For her I think it's quite a comfortable level to have made it to, and will enable her to just pick up easy pieces and enjoy them. I know that she will carry on playing, and probably enjoying it more without the stress of the lessons and the cramming practise in for the next lesson. Maybe she'll take a few more grades in her own time without being under pressure. She changes schools in September and we will have to juggle homework and practise time, so the timing is quite good from that angle!

Perhaps just try and keep your son interested in piano by letting him just play for fun, hopefully he may choose to go back to it, it's a great instrument. He is very young still and he should enjoy whatever he's playing, no point in playing something he's really not enjoying at the moment. I am all for encouraging children to give things a good try, but I think as a parent you know if the timing isn't right etc. Good luck with the violin playing, hope he continues to enjoy it!

Just my thoughts:

I would not usually, as a teacher, have two siblings close in age using the same method book at the same time.

As a mother of two boys and a teacher, i would not 'allow' the child to give up after 6 months but force/encourage/implore/wheedly/bribe/insist (whatever parenting approach you use) them to carry on and finish a year. Six months is exactly where the 'slump' normally happens (the novelty has worn off, the stave becomes a bit more complicated) and three months later it often takes off flying again.

However, nearly all my pupils (and my two children) were only playing the piano, not another instrument, so if you feel that the violin is his musical passion, maybe it;s a bit different.

I agree with all this. With piano, it depends what you want it to achieve for your child. It is really hard to understand music (harmony, counterpoint etc) from a single line instrument, and therefore good to learn either the piano or guitar by the time you will be doing grade 5 theory etc. If you are serious about participating in music as a family, this isn't really optional.

My sisters (10 and 20 years younger than me) were "made" to play the piano by old bag sister here, and in the same way it's not optional for my daughters. One of my sisters has been a West End singer, and she has been immensely helped by her general musicianship and ability to learn and write her own songs. My own children now really enjoy it, though none are amazingly good - we have an excellent and kind teacher, and they are beginning to realise that they have a way in to all kinds of music.

So I would say, stick with it, bribe your way through (my own preferred approach), go slowly and make sure the children are doing different books. At some point, it will become its own reward (age 10-11 usually...). Then you just stand back and pretend the pressure didn't happen.

good luck

Claudia has been on and off with the piano all the time. Twice she has given up and started again a few years later. As her violin is the love of her life I eventually just told myself she only needs grade 8 standard by the time she is 16 just in case she wants to study music later so there's no rush and she can do piano when she wants to.

She has recently recommenced lessons (she is 11) as we are going into an unusually keen phase now that she can see the benefit of being able to accompany her friends who are all into the Glee kind of singing thing! She doesn't spend much time doing what she is meant to be doing but plays all sorts of other stuff, makes up her own tunes and generally messes around which I think is all worthwhile musical education so I'm not too bothered.

If your son really doesn't like it then let him have a break and he can always come back to it.

Very similar! I am encouraged by the fact that Claudia has chosen to start up again, I hope that my daughter will carry on enjoying playing and messing around. I think I might subtly leave some of the next grade pieces casually on the piano, she usually can't resist anything new!, and maybe she will just poddle through the grades at her own pace, no pressure! Let's face it, with these two the violins come first!

Not necessarily, if she's going to go for a violin-based course (assuming you mean grade 8 piano). I studied music with considerably less than grade 8 piano skills.