[ctxc]

You need to "get far" enough for it to be fun.

You want to have fun playing along to your favourite song. Or impromptu jam with a friend. Or sing for yourself because a song reminds you of a memory.

They all have a minimum skill requirement, without which it isn't as enjoyable. You need to know to play reasonably well by ear to have fun imo.

[danenania]

Sure, those are definitely fun things to be able to do, but it’s not some kind of essential life skill. If it’s not someone’s thing, why force it? There are plenty of other skills that are also fun to have.

[ctxc]

I mean, fair enough. I had an aptitude for it. If you're able to figure out what skills they might have fun with in the future, that's excellent. If not - I'm not sure, you gotta shoot your shot I guess? Because the dislike might be for the process (practice) when they actually would like the end product (jamming)

I just had a kid so this is pretty real to me. How it will go is anybody's guess, but I hope it does go well :)

[danenania]

Congrats!!

I guess I believe more in the Montessori idea that kids are intrinsically motivated to learn and excel, and they will tend to be naturally drawn to work hard at the skills that they are best suited for.

I understand the idea that some skills have a hump to get over and it’s good to encourage that determination, but I’d also guess that for every person like you who is glad they were pushed to learn some particular skill, there is another person who it affected very negatively. So I suppose it’s a bit of a gamble in that sense.