There has been a tremendous surge of attention lately regarding the parenting practices of the famous “Tiger Mom.” The Harvard Law professor wrote a book called, Battle Hymn Of The Tiger Mother, in which she recounted her experiences raising two daughters in the traditional Chinese way while living in modern day America. The book has raised much controversy regarding her practices, but what caught my attention was that she pushed her daughters to learn a musical instrument, the violin and piano respectably. This article will discuss my thoughts on the Tiger Mom's parenting practices of enforcing music discipline on her daughters.

In the book as well as in interviews, the Tiger Mom forced her two daughters to practice their instruments for 2 to 3 hours a day. She would listen to them practice and tell them that each song must be perfect or they would not be permitted to stop practicing until they could.

The first daughter really reached a high level of musicianship in playing the piano. I heard her on a video recording, and I was impressed with what I witnessed. She was performing a piano solo at Carnegie Hall at the age of 14. Wow! Clearly, the 3 hours a day of practice made that achievement possible. The second daughter, on the other hand, studied the violin for many years and has recently given it up with permission by her mother, in order to pursue tennis.

Both of her daughters have high grades in all their classes. Part of that has to do with high expectations of their Tiger Mom, and partly I believe, because learning a musical instrument improves cognition and it transfers to higher scores in math, reading, and science.

I personally believe that 2 to 3 hours of practice a day plus homework and studies is on the excessive side. I believe 45 minutes to an hour of focused practice time is the most effective, especially for beginners. Unless the child is immensely enjoying the practice time, the results will not improve much after the first hour, so long as it is focused practice.

Students who enjoy practicing need a break after an hour. Even professional musicians need a break after an hour of performing. And they are playing what they have already learned. It's much more strenuous on the mind and even on the body to practice an instrument for several hours at a time because of the amount of concentration required. Everyone needs a break. The Tiger Mom supposedly didn't even allow bathroom breaks during practice time. Again, this is excessive and this method would certainly backfire sooner or later. That's exactly what happened with her second daughter.

If after practicing one hour a day consistently did not show any improvement, certainly some change would need to be made. If the student has a good teacher, that teacher would be able to make a professional assessment as to whether the student is improving and demonstrate how to achieve progress. Unfortunately, sometimes it is poor teaching and not the student that can hinder results or motivation. Sometimes a teacher change is required. Sometimes it's the teacher's personality or method that is not effective for a particular student's needs. I don't think this was the case with the Tiger Mom. In my opinion, she was forcing her kids to practice too much.

I understand that she had high expectations and I applaud that. The West seems to be lacking in a disciplined approach to parenting lately. But music inherently teaches discipline. Music inherently causes the student to self-analyze and to find solutions to improve. A good teacher can help facilitate this even further. A mother looking over the shoulder of her daughter while practicing causes too much pressure and diminishes the joy that making music brings. Now I don't know if The Tiger Mom actually looked over her daughters' shoulders while they practiced, but that's how it appeared in the videos I saw from the media. If that's the case, it would have been better to do a check during the last 5 minutes of practice time to see if there's an improvement.

A parent with no background in learning a musical instrument should not take this approach too seriously, because that would be like a lawyer performing heart surgery. It's not their job. The teacher ultimately, assesses improvement and reports the results back to the parent. The Tiger Mom did study the piano and violin during her childhood, so she was somewhat qualified to assess her daughters' progress. However, she is not a professional musician nor a music education expert. So her opinion on progress would not be considered as valuable as a professional teacher's would be.

The role of the parent in their child's music education should be involved but not overbearing. The parent should enforce daily practice for 45 minutes to an hour and make sure to be informed by their child's progress from the teacher on a weekly basis. If the teacher recommends more practice time or recommends more concentration, the parent should enforce and facilitate this at home. And if the child laments about how difficult it is to learn the instrument, or expresses doubts of improving, the parent and teacher both should encourage and support the child to believe in himself/herself.

I applaud the Tiger Mom for being so involved in her daughters' music education. I also applaud her for understanding how important learning a musical instrument is for a child's education and development. There is no doubt that learning an instrument and learning how to read music have a profound effect on a student's ability to master other academic subjects. It shows too, because the Tiger Mom's children have proven to be superior in their academics.

In the end, learning a musical instrument teaches discipline, builds self-esteem, and improves academic abilities. I thank the Tiger Mom and her story for bringing the importance of music education to the forefront of the media, even if it will be short-lived like all stories in the news. We the people, parents and teachers, must ensure that the next generation grows up to be intelligent, hardworking, and ultimately successful individuals. Learning a musical instrument indeed teaches values that will help them achieve these goals.

Steven Spielberg: The Synergy Of Science And Music Of A Filmmaker

Steven Spielberg is considered one of the most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. He is known for films such as Jaws, E.T., Saving Private Ryan, Jurassic Park, and Schindler's List.

Spielberg played the clarinet in grade school and high school. He’s been collecting film scores since childhood as a hobby and once said, "If I weren't a filmmaker, I'd probably be in music." Learning music certainly influenced Spielberg, and it helped him develop the creativity required to be a visionary filmmaker.

Spielberg grew up with music in the house. His mother was a concert pianist and would put Steven on her lap while she played classical pieces. Even while she was pregnant with him, she spent much of her time at the piano playing music. With his mom, he would learn to tap the beats of the music she was playing. At a very young age, music was ingrained into Spielberg’s childhood development.

His mother Leah said that Steven had a highly developed imagination at an early age. For example, while Leah played the piano, Steven wanted the top of the piano opened so he could watch the strings vibrate. It actually scared him to look inside that big black piano and hear the massive musical sounds that erupted out of it. But he insisted to look inside the piano over and over again.

Being surrounded by music during childhood played a key element in the development of Spielberg’s creativity.

In fact, both his parents contributed synergistically to the great visionary whose films we enjoy so much. His mother contributed music and creativity, while his father was an engineer, a great storyteller and loved science fiction. The clearest proof of this synergy can be exemplified in the final scene of the film, “Close Encounters Of The Third Kind,” in which the scientists programmed music with their computers to communicate with the extraterrestrials. That scene was about his mother and father: music and science.

This leads us to an important point. Education doesn’t come just from the classroom. It comes from the lessons of one’s parents and guardians. Let’s not depend solely on the education system to enlighten the minds of future generations.

Leonardo Da Vinci is considered by many as the greatest genius of all time. The reason is because he was a master of many skills: Inventor, Scientist, Architect, Astronomer, Painter, Sculptor, Mathematician, Engineer, Anatomist, Geologist, Botanist, and Writer.

He is probably most known for his famous paintings “The Mona Lisa” and “The Last Supper.”

What many people probably don’t know about Leonardo was that he was an excellent musician. However, in his day, he was renowned as a brilliant musician along with his other known talents. He was popular at the palaces of his patrons because of his musical talents and ability to entertain at events. It’s even been recorded that he was asked to perform at events and parties of very influential people including the Regent of Milan, Ludovico Sforza.

In fact, Leonardo applied for a position as an inventor under Ludovico Sforza and was hired. Later, historian Giorgio Vasari stated that it was probably his “courtly charms” and his talents as a musician that were responsible for him being hired.

He knew how to play the flute and the lyre, which was a stringed instrument well known for its use in Greek antiquity. And according to Historian Vasari who knew Da Vinci, said that “he sang divinely without any preparation.”  We even have a few manuscripts that contain some original musical compositions that still exist today. It is believed that Da Vinci probably had written more music but it was never found.

There is little doubt that music played an influential role in the development of Da Vinci’s mind. Though Da Vinci is most known for being an exceptional painter, he acknowledged that music was only second to the supremacy of vision.

Leonardo wrote, “Music may be called the sister of painting, for she is dependent upon hearing, the sense which comes second…painting excels and ranks higher than music, because it does not fade away as soon as it is born…”

When Da Vinci painted, he always sought musical accompaniment to stimulate his senses. He believed that when all his senses were awake, the mind could be better nourished and more productive. Probably all the masterpiece paintings that we all enjoy looking at were given birth with musical notes flying through the air.

This begs the question: Did learning how to play musical instruments and to compose music put Da Vinci on a path towards being a genius? No one could possibly answer this question with the utmost certainty. But I believe music did have an impact.

Listening (music, sounds, and silence) was second on his list of senses, and he wrote a lot about the importance of developing all the senses in harmony to achieve the highest levels of consciousness. He even wrote about it and put a lot of careful thought about the balance of Art and Science. According to Da Vinci, the two were indivisible and necessary to achieve understanding of the logic and beauty of the world.

Music is a human need that cherishes beauty, and underneath that blanket of beauty, lie the details, the precision, the logic, and the code of organized sound. For those who pursue an understanding of music and its beauty, will develop an intellect that can discover, analyze, and rationalize, and can aspire to be creative and productive like that of Leonardo Da Vinci.

The recession lingers on. It seems as if life has changed forever. The quality of life that you grew up knowing seems to have vanished. The dream of going to college, getting a good job, and buying a home has become increasingly difficult to make a reality.

Since you’ve seen such rapid changes before your very eyes, what will the future be like? What kind of world will your child grow up in?

In today’s world, there are more people competing for less jobs and even lesser pay.  Assuming this trend continues, how will your child become a part of this society and prosper?

Our political leaders have been trying to find solutions to this problem.

We’ve been told as to why the economy collapsed. "The housing bubble busted." "The banks failed." "The deficit is out of control." And so on.

The truth is that the U.S. Economy has become part of a larger “Global Economy,” where goods and services are made in the cheapest way possible from all over the world.

Even more, the global economy as a whole is in decline.  The world has never seen a “global economy” before, and our leaders are trying to find a way to stop the decline, and return to a more prosperous life for you and your children.

This “Global Economy,” is fiercely competitive. It is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. There are increasingly more people out there in the world who are smarter, more hardworking, and more competitive than you are.

And since the global economy is here to stay, do you want to wait and see if the political leadership will find a solution? It may be too late, and your children will be stuck with a poor economy, a lack of opportunities, and hopelessness for the future.

Or, do you take the matter in your own hands, join the race, and fight for your child’s share of future prosperity? I believe there is a lot you can do to compete and win for you and your children. But first, you must understand what you’re dealing with here.

Here are some facts about the U.S. Economy:

·      Over 8 million job losses since 2008 in the U.S.

·      Off-shoring American jobs is not being recorded by the media or government, but is estimated in the millions since 2000.

·      About a quarter of all adults, and 43% of all currently unemployed adults, say the recession will have a big impact on their ability to achieve their long-term career goals.

The point is that there is a direct connection between the U.S. and the global economy. More jobs are moving overseas and they’re not coming back. More employers are maintaining their companies with fewer employees.

Without new jobs, and good paying jobs, how will your children enjoy the American life that you remember?

The global economy is not going anywhere and you must adapt. There is only one way that your child can compete to get a larger share of prosperity in the new economy: Education.

In order for your children to compete against the rest of the world for economic prosperity, they must have the best education in the world.

Here are some facts about how the U.S. education system compares to other countries:

·      U.S is ranked 25 out of 30 industrialized nations in Math.

·      U.S. is ranked 21 out of 30 industrialized nations in Science.

·      U.S. students are ranked 15 for Reading literacy worldwide. 

Pretty bad. Now you must be asking yourself: “What can I do to improve the education system?”

There is not a lot you can do to change the education system, but there are things you can do to help improve your child’s educational development.

For instance, what if there was a way to help your child improve his ability to learn faster, retain more information, and spark a hunger for knowledge?

In this way, you would have a child who would understand concepts quickly and remember more of it. And then, he would actively seek even more information to learn on his own! You must be wondering how you can help your child do that.

I have the answer for you. In fact, I discovered the answer when I was 13 years old and didn’t realize it at the time! The best part about it is that if I could do it, I KNOW your child can.

The answer is to learn Music. Yes, I know that it may be difficult to see the connection between learning music and your child’s future in the new global economy. It seems like two worlds apart.

But I am going to prove to you that learning music and economic growth form a bridge to prosperity. I will in fact show you how your child can be prosperous in a new world.

Please download my FREE Special Report on why your child should learn music. It’s part of my “Music and The Economy Series” literature. If you care about the future of your child in this ultra competitive world, then you need to read this report.

You are going to need everything possible to give your child an advantage over the competition. It’s about their future and making their dreams come true. You can download my Free Special Report by clicking on this link or go to:

http://www.themusiconomy.com/special-report.html  

Good Luck!