Trumpet players are bold and brash. Bassists are mellow and comfortable hanging out in the background. Pianists are quiet and thoughtful. These are the common traits my friends and I have noticed in some of our musician acquaintances.

 

I’m a saxophonist and so are a number of my friends. We saxophonists have a variety of personalities, but we’re all attracted to the flexibility of the instrument. The saxophone lends itself to developing a personal style – it can produce a plethora of tones and characteristics.

 

Through the years, our playing styles have evolved hand in hand with our personalities as people. It began in elementary school band, when we would grudgingly practice 30 minutes a day, and led to music competitions, honor bands, five hours of daily practice and our first trips without our parents – state, national and international performing tours.

 

With our social lives revolving around music, many of our first personal challenges came after, or during, rehearsals. It could have been an ego battle with someone in our section, or just struggling with the responsibility of being on time and not forgetting the sheet music.

 

I remember how shy I was, early on, when I played clarinet in a youth symphony in Palo Alto. I wasn’t comfortable playing classical music, and I wasn’t comfortable in the group. I never really became friends with anyone during the course of the year, not even during a two-week European tour.

 

However, when I started joining jazz groups, a genre that felt closer to home, I quickly made friends. A graph showing the correlation between my social confidence and my skill as a jazz musician would show a 90-degree line.

 

 

How to Pick Your Instrument

 

But before I caught the music bug, I had to pick an instrument. So, how can parents help their child choose?

 

It depends on age. For a child between ages 2 and 7, the most typical choices are violin or piano. This has to do both with the physical capabilities of children at this age and the physical and mental requirements of these instruments. Since violin and piano are so difficult, the adaptability of young children goes a long way.

 

The violin requires flexibility and certain types of arm muscles, which kids can develop easily, but which can be awkward to acquire at later ages.

 

“My wife is a violinist. Our daughter, Juliana, started violin lessons at age 2,” says Bob Athayde, musical director at Stanley Middle School in Lafayette.

 

“It’s like doing gymnastics,” he explains, relating how Juliana developed quickly, starting on a quarter-sized instrument, and at the age of 24 became the concertmaster of the Rochester (New York) Philharmonic Orchestra.

 

“It doesn’t mean you can’t start at 14,” he adds, “but you’re probably not going to be Itzhak Perlman.”

 

 

A Foundation in the Piano

 

Starting a child on piano provides a solid musical foundation. A piano is like a full symphony at your fingertips. A pianist plays chords, melody and rhythm. “If a kid starts piano young,” says Athayde, “and has a good teacher, they’ll be in great shape if they want to switch to another instrument later on.”

 

This is not to say that it is ever too late to play either of these instruments. A friend of mine is a great jazz pianist, but he didn’t become serious about the instrument until he was 18.

 

I started the clarinet in fourth grade, a time when a lot of kids pick up an instrument. The clarinet drew me; I loved its plaintive, woodsy sound and the way it fit so comfortably between my hands.

 

But what if your child isn’t immediately drawn to a specific instrument? How do band directors help steer a student toward an instrument? Are there indicators, such as body type or personality, which they try to identify?

 

“For flute, I look for someone who’s been a swimmer, someone who can take in a lot of air. Next to tuba, it takes the most amount of air,” says Michael Payne, an orchestra director in Lexington, Kentucky.

 

Flute, he says, is a good choice for “a student who’s coordinated. Holding a flute is not the easiest thing, especially for a third- or fourth-grader who’s coming into his or her own for coordination.”

 

For trumpet, Dave Gregoric, musical director at Valley Christian School in San Jose, looks for kids with good hand-eye coordination. He finds this in athletes and in video game players. “All the best trumpet players are great at video games.” He has noticed that everyone in his trumpet section excels particularly at the game “Halo.”

 

Gregoric also notes that, like any team, a band requires all types of personalities. “Sometimes a kid on the football team makes a great third trombone player.”  These students know how to participate effectively in a group and how to follow a leader.

 

 

Love a Foghorn? Play the French Horn

 

More than any specific cue, educators stress the importance of guiding students toward the instrument that naturally attracts them.

 

“If it’s a fog horn, maybe they should play the French horn. If it’s birds chirping, then maybe the clarinet,” says Athayde.

 

Kids will have the most success with something they’re excited about. “I’m careful not to tell people they can or can’t do something. If you’re three feet tall, but you’re saying, ‘I really want to play baritone sax,’” which stands at four feet, “then next thing you know, you’re on a stool, playing.”

 

Athayde cites the example of Michel Petrucciani, the late French jazz pianist, who suffered from osteogenesis imperfectica, a genetic disorder that causes brittle bones and small stature. Petrucciani only grew to three feet, but as a child, he saw Duke Ellington on television and decided he wanted to be a pianist.

 

His father bought him a toy piano, but Petrucciani wanted the real thing, and he smashed the miniature to pieces. A special piano was built for him, one with extended pedals he could reach. He went on to become a world famous musician, collaborating with jazz stars such as Wayne Shorter, before passing away at age 36.

 

Is there a lesson to be had about allowing the student to follow his or her passion? Athayde, for one, leaves the decision to the student. “The first day of sixth grade, I put out six tubas.” Everyone experiments with the tuba for a few days, he says. Then comes flute, clarinet and trombone.

 

After a month or so, the students decide.

 

But don’t expect too much too soon. Don’t count on a fledgling player to be disciplined or magically driven to practice on his or her own.

 

“The teacher has to be excited. The parent has to be excited,” Athayde says. “If you’re not excited about it, how can anyone else be?”

 

Jesse Scheinin of Santa Cruz is a new graduate of Berklee College of Music. He recently moved to New York to pursue a music career. Listen to his music at www.jessescheinin.com.

 

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My Life (So Far) in Music

 

When I entered fourth-grade band, I wanted to play the saxophone – the instrument I had seen my dad play from time to time throughout my childhood. But his horn was in disrepair, so the employees at the music shop recommended the clarinet – an instrument that would give me a solid foundation, preparing me to switch to sax later on.

 

At first, I wasn’t enthused. I was a Tae Kwon Do fanatic who attended the local dojo five days a week. I wanted to quit the clarinet, but my mom insisted that I continue, practicing 30 minutes a day, at least until I entered seventh grade at Pacific Collegiate School in Santa Cruz, where my violin-playing brother already was studying with a great teacher, Carla Spencer. 

 

My mom was right. While my elementary band teachers were uninspired, Ms. Spencer was bursting with energy, and she filled us with her enthusiasm. She recognized my talent and made a point of giving me solos, opportunities to shine, and she would stay after school to tell stories about famous jazz musicians. When she gave an after-school Advanced Placement Music Theory class, my brother and I enrolled. She would frequently drive us home at the end of the day.

 

After joining Ms. Spencer’s class, it wasn’t long before I lost interest in Tae Kwon Do, and instead was hounding my parents for lessons with teachers around town in Santa Cruz and then around the Bay Area. A lot of the time my parents and I spent together ended up being in the car, as they drove me to lessons and rehearsals.

 

In these rides, my dad, a jazz aficionado, would play his favorite records for me, which would then become my favorites. We would quiz each other with a game called Jazz 21 Questions:  Do they play a rhythm instrument? Did they make their most famous albums in the ‘60s?

 

I joined the SFJAZZ High School All Stars (with rehearsal in San Francisco every Tuesday), the Kuumbwa Jazz Honors Band (on Thursdays), the El Camino Youth Symphony (in Palo Alto on Sundays) and the Monterey Jazz Festival’s Next Generation Orchestra, a summer group with which I toured New York, Italy and Croatia.

 

I developed a dual social life – my high school world, in which my friends blasted gangster rap in the car on the way to lunch, and a broader musical world, in which everyone was obsessed with jazz.

 

A lot of the musicians I know had similar experiences. Theo Meneau, a trumpet player from Marin, says that these programs provided him with a “social outlet that was missing in the school system.”

 

Theo was initially drawn to the flute, which was appropriate since he is a soft-spoken guy. But playing the loud, bright trumpet has made him more confident and “able to be myself,” he says, even when his surroundings aren’t inherently comfortable.

 

Indeed, music shapes my life. When I take a solo in a jam session or concert, I aim to surprise myself with what I play. It’s an amazing feeling, and it’s one that I try to find throughout my day, by avoiding falling into patterns in the way I look at my surroundings and communicate with people.

 

Living in New York City, I meet a staggering range of people. They come from around the world – Japan, India, Mexico – but they’re brought together by music. It’s like we’re all looking at the world through the same lens.

 

“Music is not like any other subject,” Meneau says. “You learn so many life lessons. You learn teamwork; you learn to listen to other people. You develop an identity.”

 

– Jesse Scheinin

 

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Five Tips for Making Music Part of Your Child’s Life

 

1. Sing and play music at home, even if only on the stereo.
2. Think of music as another part of your child’s education – just like math.
3. Get involved. Yes, you may need to nag your child to practice.
4. Attend lessons with a young child.
5. Take your child to see live music – whether at a concert or a parade.