What does the term 'adult learner' mean to you? I can't quite decide if I fit into the adult learners category. Yes, I l started learning sax, cello and clarinet as an adult so that may qualify me. On the other hand, I've been learning instruments and music since I was 6 so I'm not really a beginner adult learner if that makes sense, it's just 3 instruments that are new to me. So when it comes to an event for adult learners, am I eligible to play sax, cello and/or clarinet but not anything I learnt before I was 18?

Thanks!

I've been wondering similar things - and also, what age counts as an adult? I played violin and piano in school but have really begun singing and playing the flute since leaving school... Is 18 'old enough'?

I'd say you'd qualify on sax, clari and 'cello.



I'd say you'd qualify on both flute and voice as an adult learner Floss.

Well that's interesting! I too have played piano for most of my life, but Rattie still let me play a piano solo at Anglesey in May this year.

But now I can't remember if it was for Adult Learners or not . So next forum event is Chester - but that is not for Adult Learners, I think.

One of the joys of having a Twitter feed thingy is the random (and not so random) people who add you.

I'm not sure how close adult learner and late starter are, I'm guessing they may well be different terms but anyway...
Recently latestartermusician.com added me, this is a new site for 'latestarters', so I logged on thinking it was for say people who started instruments later in life, say age 20+. What do I find but apparently a latestarter is someone who begins an instrument age 13+
This seems a little crazy to me!

If that is true of music then I wonder if the same people who write you off musically at age 13 do the same with other subject?! I didn't really show any ability in maths until age 16/17 but I'm now doing a PhD in it...

The only purely adult learner events this year were Teddington and Stalybridge, the other events were/are for all comers.

Thanks for the replies. So if it's adult learners, it's over 18s only? When's the next adult learners event?

Sorry for dragging this a tiny bit off-topic noodle, but...

Finally! I have a way to escape from Matthew's clutches! (Until his birthday, that is )

Not off topic at all Miss Ross. What is Matthew planning to learn as an adult?

This is one that both Katyjay and myself have kicked around between ourselves more than once.
As far as the Adult Learner events go we decided not to try to define it as there are always exceptions.
We leave it largely for people to define themselves.
We do tend to stress that beginner and intermediate level players are especially welcome to encourage players in particular to share their music making with other adults who are learning. This coupled with the time limit helps to keep a balance of abilities as more advanced players who are happy to come and play to the time limit do tend to be supportive of those closer to beginner level. It's good to have a range but sometimes a too top heavy concert can be a little intimidating for beginners/intermediates on first instruments.
The only limit I've applied is a minimum age of 21 which I took from the AB minimum age for a person without learning difficulties to do a Performance Assessment instead of an exam
We don't vet applications but leave people to decide for themselves.

Having said that if I was pushed for some sort of definition in my own mind I'd say it was mostly those whose performing ability was at graded exam level.

I've got a spare clarinet. It'll keep for x number of years

No need, Barry. Skylark already lent him one.

It will be the fourth potential clarinet coming my way! I've still to buy one from another forum member! She's probably forgotten...

In the meantime, peace at last. If any young gentlemen would like to join me for female-adult-learner-free alpha male discussion, they will be met with the warmest hospitality elsewhere.

Where on earth are you going to find some of that?

When I first saw the sub-forum category (quite recently) I just assumed it meant people who were dealing with the issues/difficulties/joys of life after school. As adults we have different difficulties from those experienced by youngsters under full time education* (even those of us who learned music earlier in life). It's a place where I'd expect to be able to exchange views with people who have an adult's experience of life (and learning).

*I'd include students as adult learners (other than those studying music ? who have their own space), as they are engaging professionally with a subject and are experiencing the need to organise/decide, etc. that constitutes so much of adulthood.

I've been using these forums so long, that it took me a while to realise that I probably fell into the adult learner (or not learner!) category these days! For a long time I considered myself too young, and the subforum as intimidating as the dip forum (though I do stick my nose in their to make silly remarks now and then. ) I started fluting when I was 10.

Then its occurred to me that y'know, I'm still very much learning, consider myself an adult, and have all the same problems that many adult learners do! Lack of time, space, money, opportunities... no children yet though, thank goodness!

It'd be a shame if people felt they couldn't post here, or attend events. I don't think it really works like that.

I think elephant's point is a very good one - juggling the rest of life with one's learning does bring challenges kids don't have to manage in quite the same way....

I'd counted myself as an adult learner because I started learning to play recorders properly as an adult - yes, I'd done the usual toot-toot stuff at school on descants, but I was effectively starting over again, and taking individual lessons for the first time, on treble. I'm still learning, still have scope to improve, still have skills which I'd like to acquire, and I still take lessons. Does having a licentiate dip exclude me from the concept of "adult learner"? I don't feel it should - I've by no means "arrived" musically, and though I know I probably won't ever do that, for the moment I am still wanting to push boundaries. I have to juggle work, family, friends, household and all the rest of life's admin - yes, kids balance school and music and other extracurricular activities, but the decisions on what they take on are largely finalised by their parents, and they are cushioned from catering and co-ordination of life problems - learning an instrument in adulthood is a very different beast to the childhood version.

What a shame - I wonder if there are many under 18s or school/college students who see the Adult Learner forum as "out of bounds". I've always found the (non-cafe ) contributions from the younger members of the forum to be just as sensible and useful as any other, and I hope anyone of any age or status will contribute to the Adult Learners forum if you feel you've a useful contribution to make

As a newcomer, I had no idea what the criteria were for adult learners but I guessed that starting to learn the clarinet at 55 probably meant I was one.

I'm just glad I've found a place where there are other people who have started learning an instrument later in life, as well as all of you who learned from childhood or are still children and have welcomed me in.

I hope that makes sense.

If you check out the events board at the top of the general music one you'll find a list of Forum arranged concerts where you can meet and play with others in a friendly environment.

Thanks, sbhoa.

The other difficulty (for want of a better word!) is teaching music all day and then coming home and trying to practise. There are days when I really don't want to face another crotchet! Yet I'm quite happy to twiddle about on the internet. I guess what I'm trying to say is if I had a different day job as I know some forummers have, coming home at night to play a sax/clarinet/flute/piano etc is a complete change and would be more relaxing and maybe even therapeutic. For me, I'm simply swapping violin music or piano music for sax pieces.

I would class anybody from the age of 18 or above as an adult.

We all continue to learn - at least I do every day - so I would class myself as an adult learner even though I also teach. I've learnt a lot through teaching too.

I'm focusing on my singing at the moment. I'm learning an awful lot still. I'm definitely an adult learner! (Was 18 too many years ago!)

Thank you DaisyChain. I am a singer too. Do you play any other instruments?

I have been learning music since 2006, when I was about 22. I have started from "0" and been moving till now.
I like music, and thinking to pursue BMus, if possible, but I have to complete at least Grade 8, I think.
It's very simple to define "Adult learner", in my opinion, one's learning something which is new to him/ her, at the age of an adult.
:-)

On the flute, I had never played any wind instrument of any kind until I was 47 so yes, that makes me an adult learner. However, I have learned fast (see below) and my next hurdle will be grade 8, after which I have every intention of going for a dipABRSM, then maybe LRSM and beyond. I know that we are all learning all the time but I do think that there comes a point where you are probably entitled to think of yourself as "Adult - learnt". I just don't know what that point is.

The reason I made such fast progress on the flute is that I was learning to play the instrument but I wasn't having to learn to read, understand and and appreciate music etc. at the same time, as I was so young when I learned to read music that I cannot remember not being able to, and I have been able to play the piano (badly) and a variety of other instruments more or less all my life. For this reason I had much more of a problem thinking of myself as an adult learner on the piano than on the flute, even though I had taken a 35 year break: Rather, on the piano I think of myself as an adult restarter.

I started clarinet when i was 16, and i'm 18 in 10 days........do I qualify?

Oh..sorry John! I've only just seen this! I play piano, and get an occassional squeak out of my clarinet.

Maybe we'll here you sing one day!

Yes, but even that can be further qualified: I learned treble recorder - new to me - from about the age of 20 or 21. I was not learning to read music from scratch, as I'd learned to do that from about nine, at school, and then the piano from ten. I was also not learning a woodwind instrument from scratch - had played descant recorders of the three blind mice sort from age nine to twelve, and the oboe from twelve to eighteen...so did that make me an adult learner of recorders or not? I still think it did and does - I took them up for the first time as musical instruments with their own proper repertoire, and set out to learn to play them properly in adulthood.
I agree with noodle though - when I take up music in my spare time, it's a release from doctoring, being a mum and wife, and householdy stuff - it's not a continuation of work. That makes a difference in two ways - it's a pleasure to do rather than a professional obligation, and is also something I am giving leisure time to, rather than work time (which makes it a luxury, not a necessity).

It's difficult being an adult learner as well as an adult teacher because it requires a change of mode, which isn't always easy. As a piano teacher and an organ student I was accused of being 'difficult', as I 'wanted to teach myself' rather than accept advice. I've never been good at blindly accepting anything, and always feel the need to question. In my eyes, an adult learner is one who has become so far removed from the 'pupil' mode that it's a difficult position to place one's self in - which, I suppose, excludes eighteen-year-olds. I think it takes a particularly good and diplomatic teacher to teach an adult learner. I don't actually think I wanted to teach myself; I just wanted to be taken seriously when I didn't understand why I was doing certain things that seemed to me to be unnecessary in the production of the required sound. Adults look for deeper explanation; they don't always need it, but it's good as an adult to have faith in a teacher who's able to explain what's necessary and talk one out of needing to know about what isn't - yet.

I don't have a problem with being in student mode.
I'm very willing to let my teachers do the teaching. It can be slightly amusing to hear my own words coming back at me......
I think that my teachers take me seriously enough and I usually know why I'm told to do things. If I don't know then it's always ok to ask.
As a teacher I've had adult (and teenage) students who do take notice of my advice and those who don't.

I don't think that my teachers find me 'difficult'. I hope not.

you were great

I guess that just goes to show one can't really generalise about any group of students, adults, teachers, whoever!

Ended up having a bit of a ramble about this on another thread and it seems it is probably relevant (more relevant?! actually relevant rather than me just waffling?!?! ) here.

I think although someone who started an instrument as an adult is undoubtedly an adult learner, if one already plays something else (especially to a high level) then it is quite a different situation to someone who is new to music. There are challenges we share in common (especially things like being takent seriously and finding people to play with and for!), but I can't help thinking that our experience of being adult learners will probably be quite different.

Even if one is learning an entirely different instrument, with a new clef, the knowledge, experience and other advantages an advanced musician brings to a new instrument is simply enormous. Sense of pitch, sense of pulse, sense of rhythm, wide knowledge and appreciation of music... seriously, I could go on and on! These are all things that most beginners will take a while to learn and which on the other hand many advanced musicians will find as natural as breathing - as children, those skills may actually have taken longer to learn, but now, they are ingrained, sometimes almost unconscious.

Some instruments transfer skills better than others, of course, and each person will have instruments they do or don't "click" with, but even so, the already acomplished musician has a wealth of knowledge and experience to help them that the beginning musician can (usually!) barely dream of having.

Learning a new instrument and being a beginner again can be immensely frustrating, and has pitfalls and difficulties all of its own, but those of us who have a good deal of music under our belts so often have an easier ride in so many ways than children and adults who are genuinely starting from nothing. (Those who teach or play full time for a living also have another disadvantage in amongst the advantages of course, in that music practice can end up feeling like an extension of work, not an escape from it!)

I'm very grateful for that and I have to acknowledge, as I have before, that adults especially who are learning entirely or mostly from scratch get huge, huge admiration and respect from me for that - I can't imagine what guts and determination it must take when one has no musical background at all and has to start out from the musical equivalent of "A is for apple...". I feel quite awed at the dedication so many adult starters put in.

It's the one thing that sometimes makes me feel a bit of a fraud describing myself as an adult learner. I often try and stretch my musical wings, but the language, aurally and theoretically as well as practically, of music is something that's been part of my life for 24 years. It's an enormous advantage, and I can't ignore the fact that it makes life appreciably easier for me - it would be disingenuous to downplay it or make out that it was a level playing field.

The only analogy I can think of is when several 4th year students in my year (I was among them), having just returned from a year in Russia, took a class in beginners' Croatian (a related but in many ways quite different language) with a group of 2nd year students (most of whom had had only a year of Russian). There was no getting away from the fact that, although we might all occassionally slip into Russian instead of Croatian, or get muddled between Cyrillic and Roman scripts, or muddle grammar between the two languages, overall we had an enormous advantage; not least that we just weren't phased by speaking and writing in a new language. The class was hugely easier for us in many ways than it was for the 2nd years.

I think we all fall at different points along this continuum, from those who are utter beginners, to those who, for example, sing in an amateur choir where they may have picked up something, all the way along to highly accomplished performers and teachers - there isn't a cut off point. We're all at different points, and we all have different pros and cons. We're all adult learners, but I think it's no bad thing to acknowledge that that term encompasses an enormous range.

I don't think I will ever get to the stage of "adult learnt", no - I can't imagine being at a stage where I don't want to get any better! So yes, in that respect I am and will always remain an adult learner. But I do think that those of us re-starting, or starting a new instrument having become accomplished on another, face a different set of challenges and have (in many ways) a lot of advantages over those who are completely new to music.

Whether this entirely makes sense I don't know, I'm a bit tired! But yeah... these are my musings about adult learners in all our many hues...

I'm so glad that I played the recorder when I was young, even though once I moved on from primary school I didn't have any teaching or play with other people and I certainly didn't get any encouragement from my family! It was still enough of a background to smooth the way in learning clarinet because I have some of the basics of reading music. I'm amazed to find how much more there is to learn, though!

Oddly enough, I think I'm probably more teachable now than I was when I was a kid. I thought I knew best then and had no time for anything that didn't make sense to me. Now I'm willing to take things on trust from my teacher or from books: if other clarinettists think that a certain approach is worth taking then I'm willing to go for it and I'll probably find out later why it mattered. If not then there's no harm done.

I would never have doubted that I fall into adult learner till I read this thread! But it has made me think about it a bit.

I did piano and flute lessons when I was school - did my grade 8 piano when I was 16 then gave up lessons, took my grade 5 flute when I was about 14 and then gave up lessons. I did keep up with playing on and off and had a few piano lessons at University. But that was it.

Over 10 years later I was finding work a bit monotonous and scratching around for something to do that would give me a bit of a challenge so decided to take up the oboe. I agree that I had a huge advantage in being able to read music and, having played a woodwind instrument before, a lot of the breathing techniques, articulation, finger dexterity meant that I could pick it up pretty quickly. On the other hand it was bit frustrating having that mismatch in some skills and that meant that I rushed too quickly into stuff that was probably too difficult. I could read the music and get my fingers around it with no problem at all - but I still don't think I played it very well because I didn't really have the stamina, strength or technique to manage the tone, dynamics or intonation. I ended up doing my grade 5 after about 9 months which obviously a complete beginner is unlikely to have done but I wonder whether i would have ended up a better player overall by taking it more slowly. I'm not sure. My teacher at the time was a general woodwind teacher who hadn't taught oboe before which probably didn't help for developing technique! Either way I would definitely describe myself as an adult learner on the oboe.

The same teacher encouraged me to take up the flute again as well and cajoled me into taking grade 7 - I think I learned more as an adult than I ever learned as a child having lessons but am I strictly speaking an adult learner? I would say so!

I think the biggest difference in learning as an adult is motivation! I practiced religiously when I was having lessons as an adult - in a way that I never did as a child. I even enjoyed doing scales! And when work got too busy to be able to get in regular practise I stopped the lessons.

To update the situation- about 7 years after stoppping my adult lessons, I am now planning to take up the oboe again with a specialist oboe teacher (if I can find one) and press on to higher grades with a view to hopefully joining a local orchestra/ windband. I think I am just going to focus on one instrument at a time, and let the other 2 take a bit of a back seat for now.

... which just goes to show that even for adult learners who have quite a strong musical background, there are still some typical adult-learner issues which will show up!

I should think in many ways adult learners may be one of the most disparate groups of music learners!