My Childhood Experience of Learning Both the Piano and Violin Simultaneously

I believe this question runs through a lot of parents’ minds: should I let my child first learn the piano or violin? Many music educators also write about this, so I believe we all, at some point or another, get asked by this question. 

Before I get to this question, let me tell you a bit about my experience. I started learning piano in Japan at the age of 4 and violin in Singapore when I was 8. Clearly when I started learning the piano, everything was new. Note-reading in Treble and Bass clefs and hand coordination were among just the few. However, I clearly remember that my violin learning was made much easier because I could already read notes in Treble clef but also, my sight-reading was much faster than when I first started learning the piano. Everything seemed much easier except for the actual violin-playing itself. In just 4 years, I took the Grade 8 ABRSM violin exam, just a month apart from my Grade 8 ABRSM piano exam. The significant difference in the duration of study tells quite a bit about the difference in pace of learning the 2 instruments. 

Now here, I am not telling all my potential students’ parents to learn the piano first, and then the violin. After all, it also depends on the suitability of the teacher you meet and most importantly, your child’s interest. However, I am clear that learning the piano first definitely serves as a foundation to your child’s learning in the violin for a few reasons:

- Piano requires reading in 2 different clefs: Treble and Bass, whereas for the violin, we only read in 1 clef: Treble. In a way, you’ve completed the difficult task already!

- Due to the fact that piano players read in 2 clefs, our grasp towards music theory is stronger. Now, don’t get me wrong - I am not saying that all piano players have a stronger (and better) understanding towards music theory but from my experience, we tend to learn faster, especially in concepts such as Transposition and Intervals. Again, there is a difference between being able to grasp the concepts quickly and being able to teach them. So again, this depends on learning from an experienced teacher!

In my point of view, if your child has a musical interest and you are unsure which instrument is the right “fit”, it will be best to learn both the piano and violin and observe from there! The advantage to learning a violin is that your child will be able to participate in the school orchestra (or orchestras in the local community) and enrich his or her musical learning in a social setting. 

So why wait? Have a go at having your child learn both the piano and violin at Nancy Li’s Piano and Violin Music Studio!