Abstract Skills Learned in Piano Lessons

by john aschenbrenner August 7, 2023

The abstract skills learned in piano lessons are not unique to piano lessons. Unless your child is already a watchmaker at the age of six, playing the piano is the first time a child comes to terms with their hands as tools. Before this time, what do we expect of children in terms of dexterity? It’s well known that kids are like fawns, barely able to stand in some respects, and remarkably agile in others.

We expect children to hold basic utensils reasonably well. But we are also aware that disaster and poor grasp may occur at any time. So we invent safety items such as the sippy cup. Don't forget that it takes 2000 tries for an infant to raise a cup without spilling it. That's why we have sippy cups.

Piano Is Easy

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Unique Demands On Brains And Fingers

In no other aspect of childhood except perhaps the piano do we expect a child to learn complex finger patterns and regimens. Unless perhaps they are playing cat’s cradle or some other childhood game. The piano is unique in its demands upon a child’s brain and muscles, and is often the first place they are asked to try again at a task that will end in almost certain failure. The piano keyboard was designed with the human hand in mind, large or small. It fits the human anatomy like few other machines.

Certainly few other 800 year-old machines are sitting in your living room. Here are the unique mental skills that children are exposed to in a creative course of piano study:

List Of Skills

Persistence

Balance of work and play

Left and Right

Up and Down

Black and White

Focus and Confusion

Awareness of Time

Planning

Poise in the face of mistakes

Cooperation and Engagement

Use of two brain hemispheres simultaneously

Formation of mental imagery

Adaptation to circumstances

Actions occur in sequence

Unique physical skills children learn

Separation and awareness of fingers

Coordination of hand and eye

Increased hand and finger strength

Balance of hand and body

Finger pressure required to play both soft and loud

Separation of hand and wrist

Counting while performing another physical action simultaneously

Perhaps the greatest skill a child can learn from the piano is that repeated effort pays off. The trick is to make the piano interesting enough to make the child want to repeat their efforts by themselves.