As musical parents we often get comments about how good it must be for our children.
Also I have heard non musical parents say how they wished they knew more.
So I thought as a sort of tongue in cheek humorous thread we could share our thoughts.

For e.g we have found that viledin can learn and be taught lots of enriching that non musical parents would maybe struggle with such as Aural, sight reading skills, how to practice effectively. Hence freeing her instrumental teacher to concontrate on instrument specific technical things.

Does viledin appreciate this: No bless her she hasn't a clue, what we do for her.


I know thats not so humorous but I'm sure there are funnier people out there than me!

I didn't want my children to play musical instruments particularly, they chose to do it themselves. I was a reluctant musician when I was a child and gave up piano at grade 3 and violin just before grade 2. The advantage of being non musical and having a musical child? My son actually influenced me to take up piano again, and I really enjoy it now!

Other advantages - learning lots about saxophone music and sax players, going to concerts, meeting new people.

Disadvantages - worry and stress, worry that you are not doing the right thing, being pretty clueless in general, not being able to tell that they are playing a rubbish instrument...

I've never played an instrument and I still don't have that desire. Couldn't afford any more lessons so if I did have it would need to be repressed.

I agree with ChrisH that it's difficult to know if you are doing the right thing at the right time.

The playing has always come from daughter and we've been pretty lucky that she had lots of support from our music service early on and musical friends at the time she was developing.

Bad thing is that I've never encouraged her to say "no" because I didn't have enough understanding of anything

As the musical child (but I'm not a musician now) of largely non-musical parents-

* "Can't you play Richard Clayderman [on the piano] like E (best friend)?"

* (In the third year of music degree) How's the trombone playing coming along? (It was horn)

On the other hand, they never hassled me about practising or tried to micromanage anything. And they did listen to a lot of clsasical music, so I grew up with the sound of it "in my ears".

Oh I love the trombone comment, brilliant.

I managed to inadvertently make my parents look terrible once... at my ex's recital, was talking to his parents who had driven three and a half hours to come and listen. They asked me how my recital (a couple of weeks later) was coming along and said "Your parents must be so proud of you". I said nonchalantly "Oh, they've never heard me perform" and when I saw their faces change I realised I'd made my folks sound like the most terrible horrible uncaring parents ever. They were a bit clueless but they never made stupid remarks or belittled any of the musical things I did.

I'm not trying to portray them as terrible horrible and uncaring here either- just that where and when I grew up (in Asia several decades ago), the cultural context of children doing music was pretty different. Parents just paid for the lessons and sent the kids to band practise / music lessons / performances without really understanding what those involved. We were just left to get on with it and any other activity (sports, dance, whatever) was seen the same way. It's not that way any more.

A huge disadvantage for us was the older 2 sons tried several instruments, as did their peers at school. Knowing what potential they were displaying and them saying they wanted to quit. If we were non musical we wouldn't have known and it would have been like other activities they gave up like Karate.

Another disadvantage, viledin expecting us/ mostly her dad to spend time helping her when she is stuck, rather than having to wait for next lesson.

Also an advantage being able to do this.

Disadvantage people assuming that viledin was pushed into music, or that she is good because dad is or that she is from a musical family and you'd expect this.

Advantage, viledin is stubborn and no way was she going to play wind instruments as I and her dad do. She chose violin, we are sure out of spite as we had no idea or knowledge about strings at all, except you use a bow.

Advantage of being a non-musical parent - I am easily impressed. Round about the time Daughter learned to play Moon River on the violin I stood in awe of her talent and happily paid out money hand over fist for all her musical "needs."

Disadvantage of being a non-musical parent - See above.

Advantage of being a non-musical parent - Any progress the children have made on their instruments has been entirely down to them and their teachers. If something wasn't adaquately explained, understood, or remembered then it, quite simply, wasn't learned (or was practised incorrectly) until the next lesson.

Disadvantage of being a non-musical parent - See above.

Advantage - children formed good relationships with their teachers because they had to rely on them from the very beginning.

Disadvantage - non musical parent feels excluded from huge chunks of children's lives and is driven to seek advice and solace on an online forum

Advantage - online forum broadens horizons and inspires tonedeafmum to become tonedeaf-flute

My Grandad still asks me how my flute playing is going. I'm a clarinettist. He came to my undergraduate final recital...

Advantage of being non-musical parent - no competition for MY (non-musical) toys!

Although I can say placidly "very nice dear" regardless of quality of rendition, I far too often say "Aren't you going to play XXX?", only to hear "WHAT did you think you were listening to?!"



Disadvantage: definitely worry and uneasiness about exactly what needs to be done to what level when it becomes apparent that child is focused on music, no thought of Plan B, etc.

Also...roaring arguments over issues such as whether singing Aaaaah or showing somebody the color red has the greater impact. Cutting-edge stuff, for sure.

Actually, I don't think there's a clear distinction in life between musical/non-musical parents. I'm a piano teacher and so I suppose I'd be considered musical. My OH plays the organ, and in the past learnt violin and clarinet. So in a sense we were competent musical parents to daughter who learnt piano and violin.

However, son didn't want to do these things. Oh no! nothing as straightforward. He did learn piano, and gave up soon after grade 1. But stuck with the trumpet (so I am now quite competent at cleaning out trumpets, having had to do it for him when he was in primary school) - my knowledge of transposing instruments has now crystallised into something practical having struggled with it when learning theory for my exams as a teenager.

He also learnt cello for a while - so I sat in on a couple of lessons so I could at least understand what he should be doing - I also lugged cello to school (fortunately only 1/2 size) on my back when it was deep snow one winter because there was a school concert!

Now he's into electric guitars and drums so once again my knowledge of all these things is improving by leaps and bounds.

So I think this knowledge thing is a two-way street as the saying goes and a good thing too.

Advantages as Non-musical parent

a. Helping my daughter to do the school home works, which she is not interested to do!
b. Not easy to convince me that she has done quality practice in terms of story-telling ability of music
c. 100% accuracy in notes (check with Logic Pro for Mac and signals were fed via MIDI)
d. Familiarise with new music, which I never heard off!

In our case, I'm not sure of how much difference it's really made, one way or the other. We're both musical, my husband a memoriser, I'm a sightreader. We know what it takes to achieve advanced ability on an instrument and were able to help with that sort of practice when our kids had lessons. Being musical meant that the kids grew up hearing music, but our choice thereof: my daughter decamped early, still listening to music, but to pop: my son was able to cope with our choices for longer, but ultimately went his own way too. Both are musical, both have stopped formal tuition and the usual middle class this'll-be-good-for-your-CV route: my son joined a rock band as a drummer, did a bit of percussion in school until organising the lessons got increasingly difficult for him to manage, he stopped piano lessons after grade 3, then later took some jazz piano lessons, and is now beginning to learn more about using his voice. We'd never heard his adult singing voice until this year, when he had a recording of it done after his eighteenth birthday. He improvises, picks out music he hears and likes, and is able to find appropriate harmony on a keyboard. Our daughter stopped piano after grade one, has had friends teaching her to strum chords on the guitar, and sings constantly. She hated the formality of her piano lessons, and had to be persuaded at least to do her grade one before voting with her feet.

Both now put in the same sort of time as they would have done if they were doing music lessons etc, and both are progressing on their own. They have enough musical taste that their practice, which is about satisfying their needs to express themselves, is rewarding to them, as is the improvement. Maybe not as Worthy as the other way of learning, but it works: we have the pleasure of hearing their pleasure in what they're doing too. They'll both keep music as a source of pleasure and as an enhancement for their leisure hours, rather than doing it as a career, and I'm happy with that.

I think your children have made the choice that is right for them and that is exactly how it should be.

Speaking as a child with musical parents
advantage - they understand what the music is when your stuck, can help you practice for exams and so on
disadvantage - they know when you go wrong, they know when you play a wrong note - my dad can hear this and I now do not play in front of him as I he always came in and told me when i was wrong and shouted wrong note through doors, and I know hes only trying to help but it has made me self-concious of playing in front of him.

(please excuss and spelling mistakes)

Advantage of being a non-musical parent: child takes music seriously as an act of rebellion against dunce parent.

Disadvantage: the cost of the above!

Disadvantage: parent gets all worked up because it all seems so impossibly difficult.

Advantage: parent is easily wowed when the above is achieved!

Disadvantage: missing out on opportunities for DC because one doesn't know whether to ask the teacher if DC is capable of auditioning/going on a course, or embarrassing oneself when asking and it wasn't appropriate!

I agree with many of the above and have just two advantage of musical parents to add.

1) they are less likely to baulk at the cost of their children's various musical activities - or even when they do baulk, grit their teeth and pay up. This is not about having more money, it's about prioritising music related expenses over other things.

2) they are more likely to be realistic about the amount of effort that is involved in something, so can a) challenge unreasonable expectations of others, b) plan ahead better for exams/concerts and c) praise accordingly!

We both are non musical and our daughter ,who is 11 plays cello and piano( grade6 both).

Advantages - easily impressed by her when she plays, don't interfere with her teachers decision,judgements( fortunately both are very good)

Disadvantages - cant help her,feel really frustrated as I see her struggle but can't do anything about it( there are instances when she has thrown her bow )

She does lot of sports and I can't help her to practise effectively.

I didn't know the importance of lplaying in orchestra or courses( lack of knowledge,time and money) - someone really musical commented after hearing her once, that she is technically good but lacking in musicality, which I could not pick up.

Someone recently passed a comment that the local specialist school turns out people who are technically good but sometimes lacking in musicality. I wouldn't worry about that sort of comment made about an 11 year old. She has loads of time to develop perfomance and other musical skills.

I wouldn't worry either, because although it may, of course, be a bit true, it's also a classic comment thrown at very young performers by slightly jealous elders! And even if it is a bit true, musicality always improves with maturity, but technical skills never appear from thin air.

I'm a parent of a 4-year-old who is a bit behind on language, which holds him up in other activities, but who shows a lot of interest in music. Good music has him glued to it. When he was tiny, singing hypnotised him. I used to sit him on my knee and play organ music on an American organ pump thing (harmoniumalike), and he'd cry if I broke the rhythm and made obvious mistakes. Now he makes noises on any toy instrument he can get hold of, and is enthusiastic with my recorder. On the other hand, he also sticks his fingers in his ears and says "No Papa" if I sing, and sometimes when I play - I thought he'd gone off music until I caught him watching BBC young musician of the year award. The truth is, he expects his music to a professional standard nowadays!

Frankly the big worry I have as a semi-musical parent is that I will fall into the trap of trying to force him to be the sort of musician I would have liked to be. Or maybe I'll go the other way and overcompensate. I'd like him to enjoy good music as it's given me so much fun. I don't want him to be held back by the same sillinesses that happened to me - or miss out on the opportunities I had, for that matter. My wife doesn't think she's musical, but is actually much more so than she thinks. She had no opportunities, but actually has a good singing voice and is an accurate and perceptive critic!

I also worry that if he does get good at music, I'll think I'm more able to help than I really am (overestimating my competence), and become an unhelpful embarrassment.

One advantage is that maybe I'll be able to help him if he gets put off by the same sort of rubbish that I got:
(1) a lot of conceited comparison of "I've got perfect pitch" from the music-set at school; I now know how completely irrelevant this is.
(2) anything less than grade 8 isn't really worth it, and is just kids' stuff anyway
(3) if you don't start at age 4 there's no point
(to give you an idea: when our rather nice music teacher awarded me part-shares in our class music prize (for reliable attendance of choir!), a delegation extracted him from the staff-room to tell him he'd made a mistake!)
Or maybe I will just be subjecting our son to my hang-ups??

But these are all bridges to cross when they happen. Parents always find ways to worry that everything they do with their offspring is wrong! I just reeeeallly sooo want him to enjoy it without all bad side, but that's life...

I've decided the worst thing about being a non-musical parent is that people who are musical assume you know nothing. They don't realise that having 7 years of supporting a musical child you do actually learn stuff .

I agree, I know all sorts of things about music now that I didn't know a few years ago, in spite still being a bit of a dunce. The problem now is I'm far more critical than I used to be and less easily impressed

Sounds exactly like me

If you have a child who reaches professional standards, you can find yourself on both ends of the stick. My mother is pretty musical from a musical though non-professional family. Her actual achievements were limited by lack of opportunity to practise.

When my sister and I were growing up she was able to help and support us. When my sister reached her later teens her response to our mother trying to keep in touch with what she was doing and what she needed gradually morphed into "you don't know what you're talking about". Unless it was needing help fniding the money for a new instrument! I would describe myself as serious amateur, but still mostly avoid talking music with my sister, which is sad.

Hopefully dealing with our own musical children will bring us together again sometimes, though since mine are going down the chorister route and she married an atheist ...