I always feel a sneaking guilt that as a family, we very rarely go to hear a classical music performance just for the pleasure of it - it begs the question, why is a kid of ours spending so much time learning that particular type of music if we don't want to plunk our penny down to hear professional artists.

There's the money, the time, the fact that not everybody in the family is as keen on music...but those are all excuses! How important do other parents feel it is to set aside time and money for live music? More important to go to a local semi-pro performance than to buy another CD? More important to go to a big name concert in Tokyo than to take a family holiday?

I have to work today, but luckily son Viohazard is now old enough to go by himself to hear a friend playing Gagaku (ancient Japanese court music), and as he gets older, one concert ticket will be enough - but I've always felt two-faced about so rarely using family time to listen to good live classical music.

How do other parents (or young students) feel?

Hello Allears!!

I'm just stepping into the confessional box here !!!

On occassions my husband and I have tossed a coin and the looser has to take our music mad son to a concert he's pleading to go to. But we never let him see us do it

Umm << musicman's mum ducks for cover>>

In our family, if one of us took Viohazard to an expensive concert, Airman could and would claim the right to a shopping spree in Akihabara's Electric Town - where the same amount of money would buy him enough parts to make a very cool computer indeed (if he could actually fit any more computers in his room, that is...).

It is important to attend as many live performances as possible I think. There is nothing to compare with it, be it the lowliest amateur or the best of the professional on display. Attending music festivals is particularly good to develop a critical ear and eye and are far less expensive than buying concert tickets. There is so much to absorb from a live performance. It will give any future performer good ideas about how to present themselves on the concert platform apart from anything else too. A recorded performance will usually be edited and will be a good, but an artificial performance.

Any formal concert that I've taken my kids to they haven't enjoyed.
Either it was TOO geared towards young children, or else there was too much on the programme that they weren't fussed on that they had to sit through. This was when they were younger. Now that they're older they don't want to go at all and I'm not prepared to spend the money to have them moan! Maybe I just live in a cultural desert, but what I'd like to be able to find if shorter recitals, featuring what's to their taste, but there never seems to be anything going on that I find out about at a time that suits. Which is a shame, because I agree with what Petrat has said. All I'm able to manage to get them to is my own pupil recitals, which always include some accomplished musicians as well. 'Live music' to us, therefore means a social occasion where we hear some good stuff and some not so good stuff, but it's a shared experience which we enjoy and can talk about afterwards.

I don't think it's necessary to go to expensive live concerts. Perhaps it's different in Japan, but here in Newbury we have a good amateur orchestra (Newbury Symphony Orchestra) and a reasonable professional orchestra (Southern Sinfonia), both of which do cheap tickets for schoolchildren. So for about £5 my son can attend a good concert in his home town. There are also great concerts in Reading, Basingstoke, Oxford etc.

Also, we're only 60 miles from London, so he can go up to the Proms and queue for £5 tickets to stand through brilliant concerts in the summer.

I think we must be very lucky here. Sorry it's so different for you in Japan.

I try and take my daughter to as many live performances as possible, mostly programmes that have an element of solo violin performance and my daughter always comes back inspired saying that she wants to get up there and play like that one day! Sometimes the BBC philharmonic does family days with music targeted to children and these have been excellent introductions to live performances for her- these are not very expensive either. I think CBSO does something similar in Birmingham but we haven't tried these yet. We took her to see Nicola Benedetti play and also to a Blue Peter concert in the Proms which she thoroughly enjoyed. But I don't that she is ready to sit through long orchestral works yet. It will possibly come later.

There are often foyer events in the Barbican and I've often seen parents and quite little children sitting around in a very casual manner, listening with rapt attention.

Besides music festivals, there are often concerts put on by youngsters who play in local music service bands and orchestras which may be worth researching. It's good for children to see other youngsters playing.

'Live music' doesn't have to mean a grand, expensive concert!

Ours came to see Dido & Anaeus (sp?!) last year with us.
They were the only kids there!
I was worried they would start giggling at the singing because sometimes it sets them off in fits of giggles but luckily they didn't!!

It was great - during the interval we all went to look the orchestra as well.
They still talk about it now.

Also took my daughter to see Charles Rosen but surprisingly she didn't think much of it. It was the Appassionata Sonata!! I thought he was amazing.

So, I agree - take them to as many live performances as possible. Sometimes it doesn't work but at least they are introduced to many different styles of live music.

We don't always manage to take ours to as many concerts as we'd like. Cost is a factor as tickets and transport for 4 can be expenside. Sometime one of us will take one child if it's something special for their instrument. We do try to go to something live a couple of times a year and have done since they were babes in arms. I have to confess to breastfeeding mine in the bridgewaterhall. It was a family concert so nobody objected.
Some venues are more welcoming to children than others. My brother in law tried to take my niece aged 4 to a concert in the Barbican and was refused entry while her 5 year old cousin was allowed in.

I love listening to live music. 95% of it is probably jazz, because that's really my thing and it is so much better to hear it live and witness the interactions between the musicians than to listen to a recording. Having said that without recordings I wouldn't be able to hear Coltrane, Monk, Mingus, Miles Davis etc etc. On the occasions I have been to listen to a "proper" classical orchestra I've thoroughly enjoyed it, but I have thought about what a fabulously extravagant medium it is, involving so many musicians and how the musician:audience ratio (probably no higher than many a jazz gig though!) must effect the ticket price. Living in London I'm quite lucky in that there are more opportunities for low cost live music than I have time to take advantage of. For example all the music colleges have free or low admission recitals and masterclasses, many of the big venues such as the Festival Hall put on foyer recitals. I would think that for anyone serious about music going to see live performances should really be a part of their musical education.

I think there's nothing quite like decent live music - of all kinds - but I don't get to go to as many concerts as I would like sadly

Yes indeed, "short" made the difference between enjoyable and exhausting when kids were younger.

The snag really is the price (even amateur performances can be pricey here), and the lengthy programs - an hour is about as much as I can concentrate on and remember in any detail the next day!

If there's an interval which forces me to shuffle out of my excruciating seat to shiver for a few minutes in an underlit concrete storage silo with a cup of scalding hot brake fluid that I haven't time to take more than a sip from, darn it, I'd rather get home earlier and have a nice cuppa over a book in the bath!

I have to admit that I'm a words and pictures person, not an ears person (my nickname came from my intial post in trying to figure out how my "all ears" son was going to get through the sightreading part of his exam!). So I guess it is my fault that Viohazard is keenly interested in movie music, but fairly unfamiliar with Tokyo's best orchestras. I know I could do more...but every yen I spend on a concert is one less yen to go to the theatre with . I do enjoy vocal jazz, so just let me know if you hear of a smoke-free nightclub where they sing not too raunchy jazz at about 7pm...!

...of course all clubs in the UK are smoke free now! and the advantages of jazz gigs are that you can usually get up and have a wander to the bar during the gig, move seats, stand up etc if you want to

There are a few places in Central London that have tea-time events that are worth going to - National Portrait Gallery, QEH, National Theatre Foyer etc, afraid I don't know any in Japan though.

We live near Glastonbury and every year, Michael Eavis, who organises the Rock Festival, puts on an outdoor concert with the RPO and say, Charles Hazelwood, with fireworks at the end. My children love that. They can get up and move around, eat during the performance and see some excellent playing to inspire them. We have seen and heard Nigel Kennedy... and my violin playing daughter who must have been 6 at the time was impressed that he was so ... not stuffy (his language was a bit choice though) . We saw Lang Lang there too... and my kids got his autograph. We go early, have a picnic, take lots of warm clothes and we all enjoy the concert.

That type of thing is very child friendly and fun.

When the kids were very small - aged about four and seven, I think - we would take them to half concerts and short afternoon ones; thanks to my husband tuning for these, often, we'd get some concession on ticket prices. Some concerts are more suited to kids than others, of course - a group in Edinburgh called the Renaissance Band (my son couldn't say that and called them the Raspberry Band, which was rather appropriate...) often have dancers too, so some visual distraction for the children; similarly Red Priest put on a very theatrical show.

It's actually taken us far longer to take the kids to the theatre to see a play - only this year for the first time (not counting the ghastly Postman Pat show and similar), and they are now teen and pre-teen.

Where I live there are lots of amateur and semi-professional concerts that have free admission for children to encourage children to hear live classical music.

My children now often come to concerts that I am performing in when we are playing music that they might enjoy. When they hear a wonderful violin soloist they are motivated to do more of their own practice.

When they were younger they used to come to the afternoon rehearsals before a concert. This worked well as they could move around, read a book or do other quiet activities whilst listening to the music.
If the final rehearsal and concert are in a place normally open to the public (such as a church), anyone can just come in and listen to the rehearsal free.

We probably go to about 6 or 8 live concerts a year, but these are often shorter, daytime concerts which are perfect for children. I know mine would sit quietly through a long orchestral concert, but I'm not sure they'd enjoy it that much.

I try to choose programmes which I know they'd enjoy, Red Priest are favourites, and we recently went to an amazing concert by Orkestra del Sol - anyone else been to them?

Any live performance is good, spending a few minutes watching street buskers can be a great way to experience instruments which they might not otherwise see or hear, and our town's brass band quite often plays in the park during the summer, a relaxed and free way to enjoy another type of music we might not pay to go to.

We spent ages in Covent Garden last easter watching an inspirational strings group.... my violinist daughter was transfixed... they were so much fun, messing around.... but playing good music, like my daughter would like to be with her string playing friends in the future....

As a family we mainly go to see jazz and world music concerts, but have also seen saxophone quartets and octets and a clarinet band, well as some amateur orchestras. My son plays the saxophone and prefers jazz and blues music, but also likes modern music written for saxophones and clarinets.

However, I think that we are very lucky, in that my son's music department at school organises trips to concerts. So far my son has been to see Courtney Pine, and went to the Schools proms in London. There is a trip to see a Schools Orchestra in Leeds this year, and another trip to the Schools Proms. I think it is good for the musical children at school to interact socially together in this way, and it's nice that there's something on offer which isn't just sport. The concerts are open to all the children at school, but it usually tends to be the children who play instruments who go.

This made me smile! When the girls were about 4 and 6 they went to a Ballet and even though they didn't understand it properly they could basically say what it was about and it was obvious they enjoyed it. Shortly after we took them to see the Rugrats Live (their choice not ours), during which they both fell asleep We are just looking at going to live Music performances, although they have both been to Musicals and the Theatre on various occassions.

Look away now, or you'll see me climb up on the hobby horse.

You expose children to live music at a certain age depending on what you want to achieve.

If you quite like the idea of your child being musical or being a musician, then you take them to performances of live music as soon after birth as possible. It's an issue of pediatric neurological development. If you expose your infants to live music from age two weeks to five years their brains will get 'wired' for music and they will learn it as a language just as they learn English or Cantonese.

Exposing your 8 month old to live music does not mean they will grow up to be like John Rutter, but it gives them the best possible chance. 0 - five years is the crucial period for this.

It does not have to be 'great' music. It is sufficient for mum to join a local 'non-audition' choir and take baby along to rehearsals in a push-chair. But it does have to be live. Playing baby Mozart CDs is no substitute for exposing them to live music. (I don't know why recordings do not work where the real thing does, but that's how it is.)

From age five on, exposing children to certain types of recorded music will help them develop perfect pitch but it will not make them better musicians. At this age, singing songs will equip them with better musical appreciation, developing both their senses of pitch and rhythm. They may still be able to learn music as a mathematical discipline but they will not learn it as a language.

Taking your child to live performances at age 11 is about education and entertainment. It has no impact on their neurological development (as far as is currently known) and may increase their enthusiasm for music but will not enhance their aptitude.

Best wishes

barry

So does playing an instrument yourself at home have the same effect?

Yes

In exactly the same way that, suppose, your first language is Swahili. For the first five years of his/her life your baby hears you discussing existentialism over the phone with your brother in Swahili. Baby would not understand a word of it but their brain would get wired for the phonemes and syntax. Later, if they ever decided to learn Swahili they would be able to learn it as a second 'mother' tongue because their brains had been configured for it by overhearing your chats on the phone.

If your main instrument is oboe I'd recommend you get some live polyphony from somewhere. If you play piano too, great. Baby needs exposure to chords - not just melodies.

Best wishes

barry

Well, yes, that was the idea (and specifically, to see the same kind of music that they study in action). I know that some parents decide that music is going to be a family priority, and so they focus resources on it from an early age. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me, but it wasn't the way we approached it, so we have one kid very interested in music, and one much more interested in other things.

As you may know, keen Japanese parents definitely go for intensive musical/aural exposure and active training from extremely young ages, and the number of people with absolute pitch is fairly high, just as you would expect.

I'm interested that you say chords are crucial - there was lots of (very, very simple!) music going on when son Viohazard was a baby, just because he responded to it so much even before he was old enough to talk (so I sang more and we played musical games etc more than when Airman was a baby, and sought out local events which invovled music). However, none of that involved much harmony, and of course he wasn't playing chords when he started violin at age 4. He doesn't have more than a "good" sense of pitch if you give him a single tone, but he can identify every note even in unusual chords. I suppose singing rounds etc is a type of harmony!

I see lots of parents take advantage of festivals and performances in public places - what I like about those is that you can imbibe just as much as your kids want - and the kid who enjoys it most can stay longest, while the other(s) move on. Really casual performances offer so many opportunities to learn from performers too - heck, we even got given a didjeridoo once!

As Clari Nicki says, being able to move around, eat etc. makes such a difference when you have kids of different ages with you. It seems to me that except for sacred music, this was more or less possible until the subscription concert evolved in the 19th century!

I hope that the "noise pollution" laws don't stamp casual live music out - I was surprised to hear of a case where a pub was told to get rid of their single live fiddler because local residents complained - it wasn't a huge city, so why did they turn their backs on the suburbs and buy an apartment over a pub if they wanted bottomless silence in the evenings?!

What's really being implied here is that Parents make choices for their children as babies and subconsiously guide them towards paths in their lives. It's a subject that I find fascinating although it's not something we thought about when our children were at that stage.

I can see why this is accepted and don't deny that it's very likely. It's just not our experience. The eldest daughter is in to pop and the type of music associated with teenagers generally. The youngest prefers classical and Jazz. I've no idea why the youngest has this leaning it's not a genre she has been exposed to, or that either of us as parents have influenced. Infact her whole musicality is something that was discoverd by accident and not design.

It may answer to some degree why she finds pitching with her voice difficult although she has no problems with her instruments.

I should add that at dancing they would have been exposed to all types of music but it wouldn't have been played merely for enjoyment.

I've been lucky then! My mum played piano and sang all the time when I was tiny. Apparently I used to sit beside her in my bouncer and bob up and down

I had a tiny girl of eleven months old at music club this morning. She listsned to everything and clapped her hands too. She hasn't started joining in with the singing yet but she does watch the others carefully when they sing. My parents always played at home so I grew up hearing music being made.

My 'pupils' start at aged 3 months in mum and baby classes, it's always astonishing how soon they begin to join in in their own way. I entirely agree with Petrat on this.

Yesterday I was running a toddler class, 5 month old baby sister of one child was strapped into a baby seat next to mum. During one particularly lively and noisy song with a strong beat, she was waving her arms and legs around exactly in time to the music, for long enough for it not to have been a coincidence. Huge smile right across her face, too.

When they were babies I played the piano (I didn't start the oboe till the younger one was four and the older one six).

Hear, hear! I took my three year old to a CBSO film music concert last year and he loved it. It was good that there were lots of other kids there (it was aimed at 12 year olds) and everytime we here trumpets on the radio he always refers to them as the Birmingham trumpets. All three of my under 5s come to my organ recitals and sit through them. I know the're not listening all the time, but they will happily read a book or eat a very quiet sandwich. They will also sit and tinkle on the piano when I'm practising and come along to school concerts and rehearsals, which they really like.

I have no idea whether they will be good musicians or not, its just about giving them exposure to live music. I get asked so often about 'do you want your children to be really musical' etc type of questions. Of course I'd like them to be, but no point in pushing them into something they won't enjoy. However, there are so many kids who never get the opportnity from parents who say that music is expensive and elitist, yet they seem happy to spend a fortune on replica football kits and tickets for expensive footy clubs. Its about making music a normal part of their life.

This is an interesting article as a follow on from Barry's excellent post. Incidentally, Cantonese has 9 tones.......

Is this a chicken and egg situation? I suspect that people who developed a tonal language must already have had a genetic pre-disposition giving them a good sense of pitch. So their children might have been much more likely to have perfect pitch even if brought up to speak English.

Similarly, it must be partly because of a poor sense of pitch that ancestors of European peoples did not develop tonal language. It would be interesting to compare Chinese and "European" musical Americans and see the relative numbers of those with perfect pitch.

Hmm, hmm, pitch is important in English too, but it's not used to indicate semantic differences - it's part of the stress system (and stress is as important and hard for non-European language speakers to master as tones are for European language speakers). We rarely mistake a mangled word if it is given the correct stress (higher/lower pitch, longer/shorter vowel, distinct or neutral vowel sound) by the speaker, and of course we use pitch changes to make the structure of a sentence clearer to the listener too.

I'm inclined to think that humans have rather similar abilities to distinguish pitch at birth, and our cultures train us up in whatever use of those abilities is deemed most important!

Lots of Japanese kids have absolute pitch from early exposure and training, but Japanese is not a tonal language at all.

By the way, Violinia has an interesting point about getting kids to live music *of the type they are interested in*. I agree with her, but curiously, Viohazard is very keen on soundtracks (predictably, given my interest in movies and theater), which is a heavily edited medium that hardly exists "live" at all. But does he want to go and hear synthesizer performances or techno stuff with his mates??? Nope, he insists on carrying the classical war into their camps, simply because he thinks they ought to broaden their tastes. Seems a little dictatorial to me...

I do appreciate it when his guitar teacher takes the trouble to coordinate his (adult) students to go and hear recitals, because Viohazard can go with them, and I only need to pay one person's transport and ticket costs. Gives Viohazard more opportunities to hear live music, and he also has the fun of discussing them with people who are interested in and knowledgeable about classical guitar.

Sorry to have to contradict you here but Japanese is a tonal language. As BerkshireMum has pointed out, it may be partly genetic but there is not doubt that exposure to different tones that change the meaning of a word helps to develop pitch. This is not the case with the stress languages, of which English is one as you've pointed our - stress changes the emphasis but not the meaning of the word.

This link explains it better....

(Sorry - gone off topic! )

Japanese linguists argue whether or not a few lexical items have pitch as one of their defining features or not, but there there are just a few well-known examples, such as hashi (bridge/edge/chopsticks...possibly all the same word root originally anyway) used by both camps.

There are probably not as many of these "near-homphone" items in Japanese as there are verb/noun pairs like record (v)/record (n), which are differentiated by stress, including pitch.

It would be nice to have a definitive answer to the question, but all I would say is that pitch perhaps plays a larger (but still very minor) role in some regions of Japan... but any time I've seen people dragged off the street (by linguists in black balaclavas... ) and forced to listen to these pairs, they've rarely been able to get a statistically significant majority of people agreeing that a particular pitch pattern represents lexical item A and never lexical item B.

The items in the article, in my opinion, show the typical pitch pattern of the grammatical structures used, and these patterns would be similar even if other lexical items were substituted.

The first item has changed in meaning somewhat since the late Winfred Lehman collected it at least two generations back - in its most common contemporary usage, it really needs to be said by a sulky high school girl with white lipstick, doubt if anybody else could get the right intonation !

It doesn't seem very useful to say that pitch in Japanese acts like stress does in English, because pitch is a part of stress in English. I understand the premises of the article, but neither of the people they are quoting (Katamba, Lehmann) is an expert in Japanese, and I'm sorry, but I think it shows - it's fatally easy to succumb to misapprehensions in comparative linguistics.

It's good to expose children to live performances of classical music. However PLEASE make sure you do it when they are old enough to appreciate it and sit through it.

I attended a Royal Philharmonic Concert In February and among some of the pieces were the William Tell overture and Julian LLoyd Webber playing Elgar's cello concerto.

The two children behind us looked about 9-10 and all through the performance they fidgeted, talked to each other and kicked the back of my seat. Theywent to the toilet 3 times and the exit door had a very loud squeak when it was openend. THey talked all the way thorugh Julian lloyd Webber as it was clearly too boring for them and the mother kept shushing them which just caused more noise, only for them to start up again a few minutes later. I was FUMING.

Then through WIlliam Tell... bouncing in their seats and humming along to the music with their monther shushing them again. I didn't say anything as I didn't want to cause yet more noise and disruption for those around me.... but it drove me crazy and they spoiled the whole performance.

I DID NOT pay £40 for a stalls ticket to see the Royal Philharmonic on a Sunday night for it be completely ruined by other peoples unruly kids who are not able to behave, sit still or be quiet and clearly have no interest in it.

Do it if they are well behaved and old enough to sit for it but otherwise, don't inflict them on people who REALLY want to enjoy it and do not want it to be spoiled.The same goes for smart restaurants: all you get now is screaming kids.

So fine if your kids genuinely like it and will sit quietly for it but if not: stick to the movies to see the latest pixar movie.

I would have been too! A child was kicking the back of my seat on a flight a while back... His mother actually asked me to tell him to stop it as he might listen then... isn't that supposed to be her job?

Dont get me started: so many kids are badly behaved because their parents do nothing to stop them.

Classical concerts are no place for kids who can't behave or be quiet.

My mum always takes me to see Live Music and I love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think that more children my age should be given that oppurtunity.

Dstring

We have been taking our kids to live music performances since they were tiny strapped on babies hidden under a large coat! Equally my parents took us kids regularly to the proms from an early age. My kid brother always took his Beano comics and my mother had an adequate supply of sandwiches.

However, recently my 15 year old and I went to a classical concert where there were two very fidgety 'bored' children seated behind us. My daughter turned around in her chair and said "oh please be quiet you are spoiling it for me". We never had another peep out of them for the next hour!

Wigmore Hall also do coffee mornings on Sunday at reasonable rates. Many concert halls also have concessions for under 16, and if they go with a grandparent then thats an additional concession. Local papers have local amateur concerts advertised, which are also reasonably priced and excellent exposure to classical concert going.

I took my just turned 4 year old to see her sister on stage (5 mins of fame! ) yesterday evening. The orchestra were in full view along with the guest soprano.

Not to name any names but her comment on the soprano was "she shouldn't shout, should she"

And on the orchestra "the violins are singing- they're singing the Christmas songs"

I know it can be extremely hard to find time to go and see live music, however money need not be an issue! So many churches give free concerts - it may be choral, organ, piano - I have seem some fantastic performances by stumbling across something like this. Also, check out your local universities. If they have a music department they will almost certainly be offerring free concerts in all sorts of styles and instruments. These are fantastic because the performers will often be quite young and so they look "cool" which encourages your children to play even more!

I really try and emphasise the importance of live music to the parents of my students. I know it's extremely hard to find the time and we all live hectic lives....but the benifits most certainly outweigh the hassle.

Also, with young children who you are just starting to introduce to live classical music, try to get a seat in the back row so that if they really start to struggle you can wait for a break in the music and leave descretely without disrupting anyone else!

Ah wow, I had no idea there was a Southern Sinfonia! lol, I'm only familiar with Northern Sinfonia =]

Now I'm curious about how much performances at various levels actually do cost!!!

(Son) Viohazard's terrifying first teacher just gave us a flyer for a performance by his quartet - tickets GBP11.00 each, so for two people plus train or parking, that's GBP 25 to 30. Now that Viohazard is getting older, the hardest thing about these performances is finding time on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon to get to them! A local church hosted a harp performance that was about GBP10 to 15 last week, but Viohazard's violin lesson was at the same time...

Local amateur orchestra in our town - about GBP10.000. Another neaby local amateur orchestra - seats range from GBP15 to about GBP35!!!

For better-known performers at local venues, tickets would be around GBP25 each.

For performances in Tokyo, I think the very cheapest tickets would be GBP35 each, and twice that for affordable weekday seats at big-name concerts.

Famous violinists regularly play in Tokyo, but the concerts are naturally very expensive. Viohazard's guitar teacher sometimes arranges a group to go to major guitar concerts, which is wonderful - I only need to pay for one ticket!

Those sound in the same ball park as prices for jazz gigs in London.

Most of the gigs I go to are in the GBP 8.00 - 12.00 region, small venues up-and-coming bands and established names on the London jazz scene. For larger venues and more internationally known names it's more like GBP 20.00 to 35.00, for the bigger names at Ronnie Scotts it's anything from GBP 45.00 upwards (I don't go there very often!). There are also regular free gigs at a number of places that are worth going to and jam sessions for a few pounds that sometimes have some top names turning up.

Hello..

I'm a piano teacher but surely I was a student with parents who support me learning music. I remembered as a child, my mom always takes me from concert to concert. Even when I was lazy and refused to go with her, she didn't care. As a piano student (because until now I'm still learning), I think watching concert is very important. I started to learn which one is a good pianist or which one has to work on certain things more.

As a piano teacher, I always updated my students there's a concert at certain places. Because I want them to be motivated and their knowledge of music can be expanded with watching concert.

I think if you're too busy, maybe you could find a friend for your child who enjoy music or still learning like your child.