I still don’t know why my mom answered the door.
It was sometime in 1977, when the Hillside Strangler was terrorizing Southern California and women were advised never, ever, to open the door to a strange man.
Yet my mom did. And it changed the course of my sister’s (and my) life.
The middle aged man on our porch, dripping sweat in his polyester suit, introduced himself as a representative of a music school looking for children interested in playing the accordion. My six-year-old sister promptly announced that she did, absolutely, want to play the accordion — thinking it was a recorder. When the guy pulled a mini-version of the instrument out of a box he was carrying, my sister wasn’t deterred: she slipped the thing on and played a little tune. The guy actually looked surprised. “Wow,” I recall him saying.
At nine, I was well on my way to being the jaded journalist I am today and assumed the guy was laying it on thick to get my mom to sign the kid up for lessons. Now I understand that my sister was a musical prodigy.
My mom did, indeed, sign her up for lessons, and my sister blew away the other kids in the class. After just six weeks, she memorized a whopping 13 songs; by the time she was in fifth grade, she played better than many adults.
I, meantime, slogged away at the piano and the guitar. I never played better than any adults. Or many other kids, for that matter.
For years my sister and I took lessons, our parents dutifully monitoring our practice sessions (some of which, I seem to remember, involved a lot of yelling and a few words that can’t be printed in a family magazine). They also shuttled us to countless lessons, group jam sessions, and competitions. The end result of which was that I became competent and my sister became downright amazing.
My folks said they invested in musical education because they wanted us to be well rounded. (That, and because my mom always wanted to play the according herself.)
The owner of the studio at which we studied swore that playing an instrument would help us learn a foreign language later on. I thought it was a load of bunk at the time — but now that I speak two foreign languages and my sister speaks three, I think he may have been on to something.
Which is why, when my daughter begged to play violin at age four, I loaded her up onto the Suzuki bandwagon.
Both of my kids play violin now, and I’m in the unpopular position that my mom once occupied: that of practice enforcer (and, I will admit, chief yeller and choice-word utterer). And my kids do essentially the same thing my sister and did: roll their eyes.
I understand firsthand the difficulties associated with studying music, but I also understand the benefits, which is why I am adamant that my kids play at least one instrument.
It isn’t that I’m prepping them for a perfect SAT score or a career as a linguist. Rather, I value the ability of music to influence the way our brains learn —not just academics, but beauty. As Victor Hugo once said, “Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and cannot remain silent.” I want my children to learn the language of music so that they can express themselves when words are inadequate or elusive.
I wish all kids had this opportunity. But in these days of tight budgets and high stakes testing, many schools have cut music classes to make way for more reading and math prep time. I’m not suggesting that we scrap the three Rs for musical immersion, but I do think we should listen to developmental and cognitive scientists when they assert that music can help schoolchildren focus and, thus, learn (and retain) information better. Who knows? Music education in school could just be the key to helping kids score higher on those tests, while also imbuing them with “the shorthand of emotion” (to borrow from Tolstoy).
I may never know why my mom opened that door. But I’m sure glad she did — because it opened a so many doors for my sister and me. Do consider opening a musical door of your own, and ushering your children through it. They really will thank you for it someday.
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