Succeeding by going small
A friend asks:
What to do if a child gets frustrated? Do you have tricks for that? With my experience, if we force him on something he isn’t excelling at he may stop trying it
This is a catch-22: to excel at it, a certain amount of learning is needed. To learn, interest is needed, which comes from excelling at it. How do you get out of this catch-22? By starting small and building up. Here is how a progression that starts small may look like:
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can she identify which of two tracks is louder?
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can he identify whether the singer is male or female?
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can she identify genres first – is he able identify that Carnātic music is being played (vs. say, rock or jazz or whatever else you play that is very different)?
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can he identify one or more of the instruments in the song?
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can she identify the song being played (and not the rāgam)?
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can he identify the rāgam, even if he can only identify it if a specific song is played?
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can she identify a rāgam from any song, even one that he has never heard earlier? (big challenge, but only a small step from the above)
The crucial action is positive feedback: when your child is able to do any of the above, to encourage, appreciate, and celebrate them. Smile, applaud, and high-five. It then becomes like a bit of a game. If you child has a competitive side (many do), you can have someone else play a track and race against them to identify the above.
By creating small and incremental cycles of learning–encouraging–excelling, the child’s confidence is progressively built up. When they see a new learning challenge (eg: identifying a rāgam from an ālāpanai), rather than viewing their inability to immediately grasp it as a failure, and getting frustrated or giving up, they instead have the confidence that they will definitely learn to do it if they keep at it. The same applies to adults too!
Still having trouble at any level of learning? Go as small as you need to, until your child succeeds unmistakably, and then build up from there. Feel free to share your ideas for going small at any level of learning Carnātic music below.