Every child should learn music. Most people will agree with that statement. However I think every child should learn the piano first. Not because this was the first instrument I learned but because of the benefits to learning it.
I was very young when I started to learn the piano. I loved it for a few years, then I wanted to stop playing and branch out. However, my parents said I needed to continue the piano. For a young kid learning music the piano is the best to learn on. It teaches you music in a way that makes sense. Each key has its own space on the sheet music. It also helps because little kids have small hands and the piano has a way to help this become less of a problem. It also helps strengthen your fingers. Plus, if you spend the money on a piano it is a great decoration.
Learning music has a very similar effect on the brain as learning a language. You have to learn how to read it which is very difficult to grasp at first. Then you have to convert what you are reading to a sound, very similar to reading a question and having to answer it. Your mind will never get bored if you play the piano.
After I had gotten my fist few years of piano out of the way, another instrument caught my eye. The drum set. After a year of playing at school, my parents finally got me one. Before I go any farther, I would like to apologize to my parents and neighbors for the noise I made when I started. When I first started my idea of playing the drums was that playing loud meant making music. But eventually I started to read music for the drum set and played a little better, not quieter but more musically. Eventually, a third instrument came into my circle. The guitar became the next loud and out of tune instrument I played (again, sorry). I was more interested in the tricks that bands do with their guitar. I still am. But now I am playing all three.
For a while, I left playing the piano to play the other two because I thought I was going to be cooler playing the guitar and drums. But my dad and I had a deal, I had to learn my school song (country roads if you don't know) on one of the instruments he and my mom had bought for me. While searching the internet for a free pdf of the sheet music, I found one. It was on the piano. I decided to learn it. It was weird playing on an instrument I hadn't touched in years, but I didn't lose any of joy I originally had to play music.
Piano is an instrument that everyone should learn first. It build s up so much confidence in music and is fairly easy to learn. That being said if your kid wants to play another, let them. Music could become their escape. But even so, don't get rid of the piano, they just might find their way back to it.
