Have you ever cleared out old things from your home, only to realize you accidentally tossed something irreplaceable?
This happens to music lessons around the world when summer strikes.
And it's understandable why it happens. By the time summer begins, students and parents are desperate for a break. School and events only get more and more intense as we approach June.
So, when summer strikes, families want to stop activities for a while. And over the years, we've come to associate the start of summer with "ending" things.
Ironically, music lessons end up being part of those things many families take a break from.
But there's a problem that most don't understand.
Everything else...classes, sports, dance, the school play...actually DID end at the start of summer. Come September, there will be new teams, new dance routines, new plays. They start from scratch.
Building skill at the piano or any other instrument doesn't work like this. When we take the summer completely off, we lose so much ground that it takes a month or two in September just to get back where we were.
It would be like taking a break from eating healthy and exercising for three months of the year. And how exciting is it to get back to that after you lose three months of progress?
Summer presents an opportunity, though. Rather than seeing it as an ending of things, we can see it as the beginning of something. An opportunity.
A chance to enjoy practice and creating without an endless list of demands on your time. For three glorious months of the year.
Summer is often the end of many students' musical journeys. But it can also be the start for so many others.