Why is learning music or a musical instrument hard as an adult?

Jo3x

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Or, is it really true?

Looks like everybody have this kind of feeling, but I could't find a good reason explaining it.

Is it because adults are more stupid than children?
 
Mostly because, as kids, we do as we're told (most of the time) whereas as adults we can always find an excuse not to do something that sounds like it might be hard work!

As for me, I taught myself to read music in my late 50's then went on to apply this new-found skill-set and learnt to play clarinet, flute and mandolin ... it wasn't a problem simply because I WANTED to be able to read music ;)

For those who feel they ought to try to read music for want of something to do will always find another excuse not to bother ... and use the excuse "it's too hard".

Good grief, there's only eight notes in a scale, five if you play pentatonic tunes, if you can't learn ABCDEFG you're probably not reading this anyway !

YMMV - :music:
 
my guess: adults have more of a fear of "failure." We want it to be perfect from the start and are frustrated when it isn't. Kids just bang on the instrument and play with it, then either latch onto it or move onto something else.
It may be me, but I also think being a kid will let you get used to the amount of flexibility you need for chords like E more easily. Face it, tendons, fingers, etc are much stiffer when you're older and I think it's harder.
lypfer: I'm trying to teach myself music too. I'd like to be able to basically read it and do my own tabs without having to write it all down.
 
Or, is it really true?

Looks like everybody have this kind of feeling, but I could't find a good reason explaining it.

Is it because adults are more stupid than children?

Kids have Teachers and Tutors put in place for them and beyond trying we expect little of children. Adults often don’t have easy access to help and feel under pressure to achieve. These days I tell myself that it’s OK to fail at something and hence I try to do things and not worry about loosing face should I fail, the change of attitude has been very liberating.

Adults aren’t stupid but some kids are very bright and quick on the uptake, they’re also not worn down by life yet too.
 
I don't buy it that kids inherently learn things quicker than adults. Adults are self motivated. They learn because they want to learn. That gives them a leg up on kids.
 
Us older folks definitely have disadvantages, or excuses, if you wanna call it that.
We have way more distractions. We have to take care of the kids who aren't concerned about survival, so they are mush less stressed out and distracted by the events of daily living.
I find it easier to deal with this if I meditate for a short while before I play and sing.
Also, kids hands are more nimble. I'm a nurse. It's a fact. I know.
And they often have the access to teachers that we may not.
Kids, at least the ones with parents who can afford rent clothes food and ukuleles, have an advantage.
 
I think there is pros and cons to learning as an adult. We don’t often practice as much as we should since we are pulled in many directions. (I didn’t practice as much as I should as a trumpet player in high school band either for that matter). But I am finding the concepts of music thery are much easier to understand now. Maybe because I want to understand them now as opposed to learning only enough to pass the next test as a teenager. Now physically playing is much harder I think as an adult. Joints are stiffer and get sore more readily.
 
Kids have a more "plastic" brain, as they say. But if you want to learn something as an adult, you still can (obviously.) You might have to work a little bit harder, but I never let that stop me and neither should you.
 
Is it ever easy? I took lute lessions for a few years during (non-music) grad school in my mid-20s. It was the hardest thing I've ever tried to do, and I never even managed to play a full song - just some easier bits. Then I set it aside for the next 20 years as my life became a bit too nomadic. Just last year I finally got the urge to buy some guitars, ukuleles, etc and try again. It's still by FAR the hardest thing I've ever tried to do. ;)
 
Taking up the ukulele at age 57 has been a godsend for me. It’s challenging me mentally and physically.
 
Youth = unlimited time for hobbies. It's easy to pickup guitar or uke when the only competition for time is going to school and chasing girls.
 
Along with the possible fear of failure mentioned earlier, adults may tend to be less patient than kids. We tell ourselves we’re older, smarter, can pick up anything in a hurry. We may not realize that you still have to put in the practice and the work unless you’re one of those savants who can pick up an instrument and figure it out intuitively.
 
I think it's not the same for everyone. I've picked up ukulele way faster as an adult than I did any instrument as a kid.

In the span of about a year I went from being able to pick out a few quick chords to being able to essentially play along with anything by ear, and being able to throw in some fun solos at that. As a kid it took me a lot longer to wrap my mind around theory and practical application.

One big benefit as an adult is that you have a whole library of music in your head- decades of songs you've learned or played that you can make connections to when learning.
 
Is it harder as an adult? - I don't think so, it's just the same amount of learning.

Commitment is what may be different. As some have mentioned, kids don't have any to worry about, whilst adults have lots, & they take up your time., so finding the time to put in the necessary practice can be problematical.

Through out my adult life I tried to learn to play various instruments, & never succeeded, apart from playing recorders. So when I retired, I decided to learn to play a 'real' musical instrument, tried a couple, then found the uke, that worked for me, I'm now enjoying learning to play other instruments, & beginning to get to grips with reading music notation.
 
I think that related to the "distractions" and "commitment" factors already mentioned is that adults tend to have different values than kids -- "grown-up" values that don't necessarily support something as "unnecessary" as playing music.
 
I don't think it is true that kids learn music easier than adults. I would guess that many more kids give up on learning music than those that succeed, even percentage wise. The shear numbers of kids who have tried a musical instrument probably far surpasses the number of adults who take up an instrument. There has to be millions and millions of kids who tried to learn music and gave up.

John
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yRMbH36HRE

Always loved the way bassist Victor Wooten compares music to a language.

I think a key point is that as kids, we are allowed (and we allow ourselves) to be beginners with no expectation of immediate progress. As adults, we put in effort and we want to accomplish things, but as kids we let ourselves PLAY music. The freedom of play is much more conducive to some types of learning than the kind of rigid practice with which a lot of adults (no, not all) approach learning an instrument. And the fact that as adults, our synaptic pathways have become clearer and less flexible is relevant to lots of skills - not just music. You can certainly overcome that difficulty with effort and the right kind of experiences, but I think it's also reasonable to say (and empirically demonstrated) that it's easier to pick up new skills as a child.
 
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Cause our brains are already full, :wallbash:

There is an excellent book titled "Guitar Zero" written by an educator who examined the challenge of learning guitar. He was told he was tone deaf and would never learn to play, he did. He talked extensively about young vs older learners. As another person already said the biggest advantage youth has is WAY more spare time, less stress, less things pulling them 12 different ways. If they want to learn to play an instrument they can easily devote 4-6 hours a day to it. The book concluded that if we as adults can apply ourselves the same way there is no difference in learning capacity.

As Rllink said " If you have the desire to learn you will learn".
 
Definitely not true for me - my dad tried to teach me ukulele, and I took piano, guitar, bass and voice as a kid, and never learned a thing beyond being able to sort-of read standard notation and keep time. I think this was mostly because I didn't have the patience to put in the time to practice and learn. I'm a lot less impatient as a middle-aged adult and in the 8+ years I've played uke, I've never considered it "hard." Challenging at times, but it's "stuck" in a way that it never did when I was young.

They say the same thing about learning languages, something I've always had a knack for - that if it's much harder to learn a new language as an adult. Again, I have never found this to be the case, and I find learning music to be very similar to learning a language.
 
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