Children do not exactly have the same physiology and speed of learning. Given the same stimulus, different children will achieve to a variety of levels.
Some children will have better fine motor control and some better gross motor. Others will learn more readily through visual pathways, some through the auditory route. Still others will learn through body position. That is they are kinesthetic learners. In the same way some athletes excel in long distance events because they have more slow twitch muscle fibers. While others are better adapted to short distance sprints are in to their predominance of fast twitch muscles.
One child will learn more quickly than another. So what? By the time the child reaches his 21st birthday, does anyone care that one learned to walk by 13 months and another took until 20 months to achieve the same end? It is entirely irrelevant. So it is with music education.
At the end of the day, it’s the person you become through the daily discipline and perseverance that is of greatest value and the lasting reward.
We should not compare the rate of progress of one child with another. The only thing worth comparing is how much effort each is making. They can both learn and benefit enormously from their experience with music if we believe they can learn.
Studying music is a brilliant form of brain training through coordination of mind and body. At the end of the day, it’s the person you become through the daily discipline and perseverance that is of greatest value and the lasting reward. In a funny way, ability and music is almost an added bonus.
The other absolute prerequisite for success in music is this: you have to want it badly enough. Lots of people are dabblers. They dabble in a little bit of this and a little bit of that. They take a term of tennis and a term of TaeKwonDo.
Success in music demands the mindset where you absolutely have to achieve your goal.
If you take this approach, you will get little value from music. When people say they will try something for a term, it sits the brain into a mode where not much effort is made. This is in stark contrast to the effort and focus achieved when you set your mind to do something absolutely necessary.
Success in music demands the mindset where you absolutely have to achieve your goal. No halfhearted trying will be good enough. So before you sign up for music, how badly do you want it? You have to want it that badly, or you won’t be prepared to put in the amount of work necessary to overcome the hurdles.