Kids learning classical music - People ask, Is classical music good for kids? What defines classical music? These are great questions I plan to address in the future. When you are learning music, studying classical music will cover techniques for most instruments better than any other music. It’s generally the best starting point, depending a little on your musical goals. One important practicing habit learned when practicing classical music is to practice with a metronome.

The metronome is a practice tool that will help you in a number of ways. If you are serious about learning an instrument and learning to play music, learn to love your metronome! You need to be using it with your warm up scales and with your music. It helps you quickly identify your problem spots to practice, and even your slightly weaker spots (that you didn’t think were hard spots). It helps play notes, scales and runs more evenly; and it helps you mark the beats and find counting errors. It helps you speed up the music to the required speed if fast, or just to keep the feel of the music at the required slower speed. You can start with a slow beat and increase the speed of your music gradually (perhaps over a period of weeks or months) to be able to play a really fast piece up to tempo. You can put two or more time marks to the beat to help with counting difficult passages.

Mostly only beginner lessons teach this if you are learning classical music. So even if you don’t think classical music for kids is cool, it is the best place to start if you want to become accomplished when learning an instrument. I took guitar lessons when I was a teenager just to learn basic strumming and chords. I was not told to play with a metronome. But it was just something I wanted to do for fun to accompany singing folk songs and just to play for myself. I think some people come by being able to keep a strong steady beat naturally, and some come by it by doing a whole lot of listening and some have to work hard at it. But it is important. I would love to here feed back on this, especially from accomplished guitar players. Please comment below.

One more note about practicing with a metronome. It helps you prepare for playing with a group.