<p>Hi. Brand new member. Heading to bed but I've had this question for awhile now. </p>
<p>My son is a tenor sax (and alto and soprano) player who has studied since 4th grade and is now an incoming HS freshman. He has been first tenor in his jazz band since 7th grade, made a county-wide honors jazz band this year and has finally got an excellent teacher (after I found this helpful site and woke up to the fact that he needed a major teacher upgrade). He attended two week-long jazz workshops this summer where he was placed fairly high for his age and experience, and it seems to have lit his fire for his instrument in a way that looks promising. Like he will now be self-motivated to learn, improve and grow. The joy of music and increasing mastery of his instruments providing the spark to go forward, rather than his parents nagging him to practice.</p>
<p>I was wondering at what age your kids (or you) realized that music was their path? When the light really came on and the passion was kindled. My son will turn 14 next month and I'm wondering if his enthusiasm and serious training is coming at the right time compared to those who go on to be music performance majors at the better colleges. </p>
<p>Sorry about the length of the post. Thanks for any responses you may offer this Northern California family who is just now seriously looking at this career path and how to get there.</p>
<p>Mine started making noises about studying music as a 14 year old freshman, but I must confess that we poopooed him a bit. We had always had the best teachers we could find for his primary instrument (classical) which he began studying at age 7, but didn't attend as carefully to his interest in jazz, which didn't even emerge until he was a freshman. Once it was clear that he had a lot of ability and passion (and was extremely serious too) in jazz too, we got him excellent teachers, and have facilitated his progress in this area too.</p>
<p>Even through most of sophomore year though, I thought he would continue music as merely an avocation; that he would go to an LAC and play music on the side, while studying something else. However, it because very clear that he was only interested in pursuing a conservatory education by spring of that year, and that is the path we have been on ever since (he was there sooner...took more time to get the parents on board). He is a rising senior.</p>
<p>Good luck to you and your son! I think many people don't realize how serious their kids are until well into high school!</p>
<p>D didn't really express it seriously until Sophomore year. DW & I remained supportive, BUT we did keep the possibility that DD may reconsider at any time... Kids these days have so many things tugging at them.</p>
<p>My son probably had determined music would be his path at about seventh or eight grade. He fell in love when he first picked up the viola in third grade and by the time he was a high school freshman it had grown into an all consuming passion.</p>
<p>While he always maintained a strong interest in geography, history and political science college selections were based on conservatory level opportunities.</p>
<p>We did nothing "special" in his development other than providing an instrument appropriate to his level, good private instructors, a great chamber coach, the best summer opportunities as financially viable and sideline support and encouragement.</p>
<p>We also periodically reminded him of the difference between a musician and a pizza... the ability to feed four.</p>
<p>I could not imagine him happy in any other career path.</p>
<p>My D is a rising HS senior, planning on pursuing violin performance and music history. She's studied her instrument since age 5, it's always been a part of her life, part of who she is. Fortunate to have had really good teachers, and excellent youth orchestra and summer festival experience. Changed teachers two years ago and her playing matured exponentially. That's when the murmurs about a music major began. She's gone back and forth over this time, because music is part of her and she cannot imagine not pursuing it seriously. But she is also an academically talented student, loves research, history, writing. And she couldn't imagine not pursuing those interests seriously either. I think she's found the right niche for this next step.</p>
<p>Bottom line: support him, nurture him, cheer from the sidelines, and give him the space to figure it all out for himself. Then fasten your seatbelt, it's bound to be an interesting evolution over the next few years.</p>
<p>Seventh grade for S2. I can pinpoint the moment. It is, as you describe, a moment when the lightbulb turned on. He started piano in second grade, started composing the same year (on paper -- he had composed orally as early as toddlerhood), started singing in 4th grade (boy choir), and started horn in 6th grade. In sixth grade he started making noises (no pun intended) about wanting to be a "real" musician. We are a musical family, and took it for granted that music would be part of his life, as it is part of all of ours. It hadn't really occurred to us that anybody would choose to do ONLY music, so this took a re-adjustment of our attitudes. In seventh grade, he was being pulled many directions (namely things involving soccer, writing, and music) - and came to me for help when things started conflicting. I said, "Do what you love." It was apparently the permission he'd been looking for, because he said immediately, "Okay. Music." And it looked like a huge weight had been lifted from him. He's been pretty single-minded about it since.</p>
<p>D, on the other hand, is starting college as a music performance major, and may well decide to continue that path, but still thinks of herself as "undecided". She loves violin, but loves other things, too.</p>
<p>I'm a rising highschool senior this year. The moment that really spoke to me, although I'm sure my parents would say something different, was my freshman year in highschool. I became principal cellist in my school's top orchestra in the first seating audition (and have been ever since). I didn't even have to audition to get into the top orchestra, which all of the other freshman did (all 5 or so out of the 30 people in the orchestra). After a while it dawned on me that I was pretty good at the cello, I was way better than any of the upperclassmen (or lowerclassmen for that matter). It became one of the precious few things I acctually did well that year (I've brought my accademics up quite a bit since then) That's when I first though "hey, maybe I can do this for a living". Now I wouldn't even dream of doing something that doesn't relate to music (and has nothing to do with math!!)</p>
<p>Both kids grew up around lots of music, so there was no single Eureka moment for them as far as wanting to have some kind of lifelong involvement. When small, they pretty much always wanted to hang out with the adults once the music making started. When my daughter started doing sleepovers in grade school, she would ask to see her friends' music rooms because she just assumed that everyone had to have one. We have home movies of her attempting to play a violin at about age 2, then holding it cello-style between the legs after seeing Yo Yo Ma on Sesame Street. The same home movies show son at an even earlier age strumming anything that was even vaguely guitar-shaped (toilet brushes, brooms, sister's violin, tennis rackets, toy baseball bats - he was pretty single-minded back then). When he was about five, we received a note from his Kindermusik teacher saying that, in her twenty years as a music teacher, he was the first one who ever cited the crumhorn when asked for an example of a wind instrument.</p>
<p>Daughter was not certain that she wanted to try to go pro until her summer at Tanglewood, before senior year in high school. Son is still determined to go to business school although he plays guitar and sings quite well.</p>
<p>Well, my son was a late starter... He started school band in 5th grade and was always one of the best in the band in middle school, but he rarely practiced, especially in the summer, and certainly didn't think of it as a career. He started high school band in 8th grade. (We were homeschoolers who could be flexible, and the middle school band director recommended him to the high school director.) He still did not take it that seriously, however. </p>
<p>In 9th grade he began taking lessons with the principal trumpet of the Oregon Symphony, which brought great improvement to his playing, as his teachers had been high school students up to then. At the end of his sophomore year, he decided to audition for the local (nationally known) youth orchestra. He was named principal trumpet of their second orchestra. Although he did not recognize it at the time, I think this is what really turned him toward music as a career. </p>
<p>As for actually announcing his intentions to major in music, however, that didn't come until the middle of college applications his senior year. (He was then in the top youth orchestra, but NOT principal by any means.) He began applying with the intent to major in premed and minor in music--or double major. By the time he was done applying, he had decided that music was it. He said he had felt that way for awhile, but knowing how difficult it is to make it in music, had resisted making the commitment.</p>
<p>What was interesting were the comments of his private teacher. This wonderful man had been teaching trumpet for 40 years and had taught a number of top players. He said that 99% of the time he can predict at the start which players will be good enough to go into music and which will not. We kind of wondered when he would ask our son if he had considered political science or some other major... Then, in our son's senior year, the teacher said that in 1 out of 100 cases, he was wrong, and our son was one of those. I think that confirmed for our son that music was it for him.</p>
<p>Now, after two years at IU, our son is totally into music. He knows it will be a struggle to make it, particularly being a late starter as he was, but he is giving it all he has.</p>
<p>My son came home one day from kindergarten and announced, "I want to play the jello." It didn't take long to figure out what he meant. There was a group of older grade school kids and their teachers walking around giving demonstrations and recruiting future string musicians. That was 11 years ago and he's never once thought about quitting. </p>
<p>His one other love has been conducting. I used to play Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody" or "Peter and the Wolf" and he would stand on a little podium in our living room at 3 years old and "direct" a make believe orchestra. I knew then that he had good rhythm. When he tried out and made drum major this year, I knew his dream had come true. This will only be thru high school tho (I hope). But the cello will be forever.</p>
<p>I would say that this is one thing you can give your children at a very young age - - along with reading to them - - is the introduction to beautiful, meaningful music. I've always given new borns the gift of music in the form of several CD's. It is amazing those parents who use the opportunity to introduce music to their new infants and then the ones who never even crack open the CD, no music in the home, ever.</p>
<p>My son is also a cellist. He started playing in 4th grade and was quite good and took it quite seriously, but didn't start talking about doing it for a living until 8th grade. One day when we were going somewhere in the car he announced that when he grew up he was going to play in the Chicago Symphony. I told him that was all well and good but that was like my middle school students who told me that they were going to play professional sports - a great idea, but very difficult to do. He said "Well, somebody has to do it so it might as well be me!" </p>
<p>He graduated from Eastman in 2006 and is now headed to Mannes for grad school. And playing for the Chicago Symphony is still in the picture... :)</p>
<p>D started studying voice at age 10 at the suggestion of a music teacher at her school. She scored a juvenile singing role at 14 in a major opera production (w. Placido Domingo) ---something clicked when she saw her name professionally printed on her own dressing room table back stage. My husband was with her and doesnt describe it as "a light going off" as much as the "no way out" moment. As a "working" actor he knew what a scary moment that was (for us more -not her). Every time he writes a check for lessons or tuition he repeats the mantra, no way out, no way out........</p>
<p>There are a few very clear moments when I realized that D was becoming serious about pursuing the study of music. At the end of 7th grade, she participated in an honors band program that brought together other motivated students from many different schools. Until then, she had only played clarinet in the school band and had only group lessons at school, was one of the best and never had to practice much. After the last rehearsal for the honors program, she got into the car with a heavy sigh and said, "I wish band was like this all the time." At that point, we discussed what else she could do - start taking oboe lessons, which was something she had considered all along, and/or join a youth orchestra. We discussed the possibility of music as a career, although I was thinking along the lines of her becoming a music teacher. That summer she took a handful of oboe lessons to see if she'd like to consider switching instruments. She continued to play clarinet through 8th grade, but started with regular private oboe lessons in the middle of 8th grade.</p>
<p>Then, at the very end of 8th grade, one of her best friends died. Understandably, we were all pretty shaken up. We cancelled all activities that week. All, except the oboe lesson. She insisted she needed her lesson and it became clearer to me how important her music was to her.</p>
<p>At the beginning of 9th grade, she joined the local youth orchestra program and was promoted to principal oboe in the top orchestra by the middle of 9th grade. That summer she went to her first summer program, where she had the opportunity to play in a masterclass with the oboe teacher from Curtis. He apparently felt she was one of the students who had potential. And that was that....</p>
<p>We knew DS had some music talent at 18 months (no kidding) when he would sing kid's songs to us with perfect intonation! His "light's on" came in 2nd grade when he heard a children's chorus sing at his school, and announced he wanted to audition. We didn't let him do so until the beginning of 4th grade (in retrospect, we should have let him do it a year earlier)...and his fate was sealed. It was music and nothing else. He started trumpet in 5th grade, and piano in 7th.</p>
<p>My D caught the "bug" in 4th grade! She was considered a "flute prodigy", as she really was amazing and within a year after starting was performing with the high school groups. She continued until 9th grade when her teacher forced her to make a choice between flute and voice- and she chose voice. She will be a junior this year and is looking at schools which will allow her to pursue a career in opera!</p>
<p>D's "light" came on in middle school, and intensified as HS years went along. She gave up all other activities and centered her time around musical pursuits..youth orchestras,summer programs, private lessons,etc. We could see music was the be all and end all when she centered all her research projects around musical themes...Honors Math research was on the "Golden Mean",Euro AP paper was on the music of WW1,etc. At some point she announced the idea that she must have music in her life,always.
SHe started out as a flute performance major, but a brighter light came on the fall of her soph year when a music history prof said to her.."have you ever considered a life in musicology".She hasnt looked back since, and is now the happiest musicology TA/3rd year PhD student.</p>