How to Learn a Musical Instrument -- Article

[seely]

I wrote an article and wanted to hear feedback from a teacher's perspective. The article is titled "Learn a Musical Instrument" and is geared towards Joe Anybody who has thought about picking up an instrument but never went through with it.

For beginner or soon-to-be-beginner piano students, what do you think are the main ingredients for success? I wrote that having desire trumps all else -- as long as you want something bad enough, the details seem to work themselves out on their own. Secondly, I think excuses and alibis (my hands are too small, I'm too old, etc) are rarely fully justified and should never be used as an excuse to not play or to quit. What do you think?

[loops]

There's alot of interesting things there ... but if you really want to get a decent readership and not just titillate
teenage boys, remove thebit about fingering and blowing, it's really YYYEEEEEEUUUCCCCCCHHHHHH

[666666]

Is your article just for guys and lesbians?  You have a whole section on picking up girls.

[Bob]

Main ingredients for success in a beginner?

Pieces of music that they enjoy and connect with
A teacher that knows what they're doing
Some amount of work from the student
Realistic goals on both sides
Time to practice
A decent instrument to practice on

[danny elfboy]

I wrote an article and wanted to hear feedback from a teacher's perspective. The article is titled "Learn a Musical Instrument" and is geared towards Joe Anybody who has thought about picking up an instrument but never went through with it.

For beginner or soon-to-be-beginner piano students, what do you think are the main ingredients for success? I wrote that having desire trumps all else -- as long as you want something bad enough, the details seem to work themselves out on their own. Secondly, I think excuses and alibis (my hands are too small, I'm too old, etc) are rarely fully justified and should never be used as an excuse to not play or to quit. What do you think?

I really like your article and how you avoid all myths that exists about this topic: small hands, not enough time, you're too old.
I especially liked what you said about Mozart. Mozart hated being called a genius, he though of it as a bad insult and kept claiming that there's no genius just dedicated people. Still nowadays there's no empirical proof of the existence of geniusness which doesn't depend on the commitment to a specific topic or skill
I also liked what you said about it being a matter of how many time you spend doing something and not when you begin. It's what I call the timeline. What really matter is the timeline itself not when it starts. That's why knowledge is not standard and there's no direct connection between knowledge and age, just with time spend observing and practicing something and the level of knowledge about it.