How many flutherites were forced into learning the piano during childhood?

I was never a piano player. I played clarinet and alto saxophone because they were the instruments I was interested in learning. My father was forced to take piano lessons when he was young. He told me about the afternoons after school when he wanted to go run around with the other boys and play football but his mom made him stay in and take lessons. He wasn’t happy. The story broke my heart. My grandmother was very controlling. :/

Nope. The furthest it got were the occasional keyboard lessons in music class at school. Never got very far, and never managed to read musical notes.

I would have given my left arm to learn piano (which would have made playing a little difficult..)

I expressed great interest in learning how to play an instrument – any instrument – my parents simply could not afford it, not even to rent me something. They would have gladly done so if they had the funds, but our budget was extremely tight so I can’t blame them.

Not me, but there was this guy in school who was forced to learn, as was his little brother. He was always telling us that his mom preceded his piano lessons before his homework. Never got if that was a joke he made, or if it was actually serious…
I don’t know about the little brother, but the other boy didn’t really give a shit, and had no passion for it. He did pretty good as far as I know, but he never pursued it. He loved computers and stuff, and his mom eventually left him alone about the piano.

As for me, my mom made me take tap dancing lessons. I didn’t dislike it, wasn’t as horrible as I thought, but once we had to perform for a festival in Winnipeg, and I didn’t like it. Did alright, but Christ, never again.

Yup. Technically, I started out being forced into violin lessons, but then I broke my arm a few months into practice and was no longer able to hold up the violin properly while my arm healed. So, we switched to a piano for several years, while my mother entertained delusions that someday, I’d just magically love it, and would serenade the family with tunes during dinner.

Shockingly, the end of that story ends with money down the toilet, not beautiful live music during dinner. Partly because I refused to play songs that weren’t part of the Star Wars soundtrack.

It’s funny with me. I was never forced into it. My parents asked me if I wanted to do it, and I said, “sure.” I hated it, and 10 years later I asked to quit. They said, “sure”.

Turns out, though, that the joke was on me. I ended up liking it and I’m now taking piano lessons again 30 years later.

My Grandmother was a piano teacher, and she had me in lessons for several years. I loved the lessons, and never felt forced.

I was offered the opportunity, but the lessons were with a friend of my grandmother’s and required me traveling with my younger brother, from the south side of Chicago to the suburb of Oak Park. It was a train ride, transfer to a bus and an hour and a half each way. My brother got sick on the bus frequently. Neither of us did very well with lessons. I didn’t practice much, but I learned to read music a bit. Not well. We lasted two years, I think. I think I would have done better if I’d started earlier, had a different teacher and less of a commute. (excuses, excuses)

I wasn’t forced, compelled against my will, but I was pretty strongly encouraged by my mother to the point of pushing. And I went. I got through four or five years of it before it became obvious that I could achieve a certain level of mechanical competence with my small hands and short fingers, but I had neither a musical gift nor a passionate love of performing.

However, I did learn to play by ear well enough to be able to play the songs I knew, with appropriate harmony, and that was adequate for my modest ambitions. The sense of harmony, chord structure, and chord patterns and relationships translated into a fairly decent level of skill on the guitar when I was in college.

Every now and then I sit down at the piano for a while, but I’m terribly out of practice.

I do value having learned enough about music to become a better listener.

I was forced into it for sure. I might have enjoyed it if it wasn’t presented to me in such a negative way. My parents thought it would be a good experience… and it could have been if I didn’t feel like I was being punished.

I never have felt the need to try again .. just bad feelings.

Parents should keep that in mind. Sometimes the very things they think are best for their kids backfire just by the way they approach it.

I wasn’t forced, I chose to have piano lessons. I wasn’t very good at it though. It took me a long time to get the hang of it and, even when I did, it never came naturally to me. I’d love to be able to just sit at a piano and play to my hearts content but I end up getting very frustrated when I try!!

I wish I had learnt to play the violin at a young age.

It was always understood that people in my family learn music, and I went to piano lessons willingly. Unfortunately I did not get along with the teacher well and her dog hated me, so I quit pretty quickly. But learning to read and understand music was very helpful when I took up the clarinet a year or so later, which I love to play and at one point was good enough at to make a career of.

Also, there was a public art project here in NYC a few years back where a guy put like 50 pianos in random public locations all around the city. I love that I was able to sit down at a piano in the middle of Times Square and play a bit.

I took them for a couple of years. I didn’t like it and I was able to quit after pleading with my mom. My sisters all took lessons a bit longer than I did, and one of them continued into college and makes a career of music.
I’m glad that I took the lessons and learned how to read music. Sometimes I wish I had continued a bit longer, but I wasn’t very good at it and hated the practicing.
I do think it’s kind of sad that the piano lessons that many of us took as kids seem to be out of favor with the kids and parents of today. Not that I advocate pushing an unwilling child into music lessons, but the opportunity to see if you like it seems to be gone for so many families.

I was definitely forced into it. Everyone in my family was into music, and my parents made it clear that I needed to conform to that pattern. Also, the lessons were supposed to improve my fine motor skills, which my teachers complained about a lot whenever they had to read my chicken scratch handwriting. My parents treated my indifference towards music and my poor motor skills as hadicaps that could be “fixed” by the piano lessons (which only lasted for a year or so because I hated them). In the end, my fine motor skills eventually improved on their own as I matured physically, and I might have developed an interest in playing on my own if I hadn’t been coerced into it.

Piano lessons were never in my future, as a child. Music was in my soul. I wanted first to play the electric bass, but showhow, I was mysteriously directed into playing drums. I taught myself and I was just born with that musicial talent..

Lonelydragon stated she felt like she had be coerced into playing the piano. I never had to deal with that situation. I think my drumming was the cause of my mothers hearing loss. She never complained from the loud drumming coming from me and my drums.

I had piano lessons but was not forced. I think I wanted to do it. Unfortunately, the teacher was an old lady who taught me not songs that I might be familiar with and therefore enthusiastic about learning, like Elton John songs for example, but songs that were probably from the 1940’s and I couldn’t identify with at all. I ended up never practicing and I dropped out.

Me. I hated it.

My parents signed me up for piano, but I didn’t feel forced. I liked playing it, just didn’t want to practice every day. And I loved my piano teacher!!! I took lessons for, hm, maybe 5–6 years? Don’t really remember. I still have a piano and sometimes I even play it.

Me. I loved my teacher.

But I was her worst student.