Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Not a question just an observation

When our kids were little there were a lot of foods they wouldn't eat because they said they didn't like them
We took my mother in law suggestion to let them help prepare meals when they were old enough
Lo and behold. They started to eat more things including the dreaded broccoli.

Well I have never really liked Mel Torme's Christmas Song. Hated it, truth be told.
Last week it was assigned homework by my teacher.
Got a chance to play it myself a few times and guess what?

Lo and behold. I still hate it.

Anyone else get forced to play genres or songs they don't care for?

Of course, but your teacher probably had a reason for assigning it other than to torture you.

In the words of my mother, whom I'm channeling more and more according to my own children, "How do you know you don't like it if you haven't tried it?" (She was talking about broccoli, but it does seem to apply here.)

You gave it a shot and now can fairly say you don't like it.

Chalk it up as part of the learning process. We all play things we don't care for as stepping stones to playing stuff we do like that is beyond our current skills. You just have to grit your teeth and learn what is to be learned from that detested ditty.

And I STILL don't like broccoli no matter how it's prepared.

The Alfred books are full of cheesy tunes, but you can change the way you play them.

OT reply. When my 3 kids were little, they ate everything. Their favorites were and still are: Brussels sprouts, spinach and broccoli. I have a theory why.

When I was 7, I fell off a bicycle and injured my mouth. As a result, I had to eat jarred, commercial baby food for several weeks. Have you ever tasted it? It smells disgusting and tastes even worse, except the fruits. There I was, just a little girl, and I swore I would never, ever feed my own children commercial baby food, except the fruits. My babies ate exactly what we ate - ground up. I'm a fairly good cook and I cook everything from scratch using fresh ingredients. The only canned/jarred foods I use are canned tomatoes (for sauce), broth, beans, applesauce and condiments. I never over-cook my veggies so they are still sweet, crunchy and brightly colored. I never use ready-to-cook mixes or frozen entrees. I didn't hesitate to season the baby food just the way I seasoned the adult food.

One son became a chef. When he was little I used to have to cajole him to eat his whole meal by saying, "just eat one more bite of your chicken and then I'll let you finish your vegetables." My other two sons love veggies too. And, they helped me in the kitchen when they were very little and I taught them all how to cook when they were around 7 or 8. They are all young men now and every one is a fabulous cook. Incidentally, we are all quite healthy.

I think babies have an acute sense of taste and smell that we do not give them credit for. If you turn them off to food early by giving them bad food, you ruin them for life.

Back on topic, I suppose the same is true for music.

Deborah, I completely agree with your theory. I did the same. My kids didn't get commercial baby food, it's disgusting. I had a baby food grinder and everything I prepared for the family was chopped for the babies.

I think this is the way most of the world feeds the kids; leave it up to us Americans to go for convenience over quality yet again.

Tastes can change. Some adults learn to actually like broccoli. But then I've heard that taste buds lose sensitivity over time. Maybe in 50 years or so, you'll like "The Christmas Song" ... when you can't hear so well anymore.

I've hit songs in the John Thompson books that I don't like. I challenge myself to make them as interesting as I can. For a couple of them, I just learned them to a minimum level and moved on.

With foods, I won't learn anything by eating something I don't care for, so I just move on!

There's definitely some good in being a well rounded musician! I get my students to try a bit of everything (yes, even the students on "exam-schedule"!) and we pass judgement after we try the piece.

Liking vegetables has been proven to be genetic. There is a gene that is related to how bitter vegetables tastes from very bitter to not at all. Watch this video http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/science-picky-eaters.html to learn why.

Your children who love vegetables has little to do with you being a good cook, but everything with inheriting your gene for not being able to taste bitterness in vegetables especially broccoli.

I'm not sure how this relates to music, but I do not believe there is a genetic factor relating to liking certain genre of music. I think that's cultural and not genetic.

I just bought a Used Yamaha Digital because it was cheep and a quick resale job. Looked like it was used as a drink tray. Removed all the keys and and cleaned up the spill. She Also gave me her music books. I went home and just played some of her level 1,2 sheets. They were the worst sheets you could play to keep your interest. No wonder she quit. I realize books have a verity but i found almost all the songs had taken the word FUN out of the equation. I think she got destroyed buy the music she played and the crappy piano. There was no p or pp. That was after the (weighted) keys were working. (Yamaha cpl-260) Im going to email her if she had a teacher or was making her own discussions. I would of quit also. I can't believe how important a good teacher is.

"I hate broccoli"

It's really hard to comprehend what there is to dislike about "The Christmas Song" - it's a classic with a nice melody and fine, nostalgic lyrics - the problem is obviously not with the song...

Maybe a different approach to this problem would be to listen to a song called "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" instead...perhaps this could ease your way into a better appreciation of the commendable merits of the song in question here...

Of course I had to play songs I don't particulary like. For example, the simple latin tunes such as La Cucaracha, Mexican Hat Dance required early on. However, being required to do them taught me an awful lot about syncopation and timing of that genre. Believe me, I struggled with them far longer than I wanted to in order to learn a valuable technique.

I just tell myself to shut up and practice the piece.
Playing it well will get it passed off sooner, and I generally like stuff better once I can play it anyway.

Nice theory - except my wife did this and ... Well, with our daughter is just like you describe, eats almost everything. Our son, nothing. They both had similar meals, he just wouldn't eat them and still doesn't.

The Christmas Song is one of my favorites!

Actually no. I never had to play a song or piece that I don't like.

I guess with the recorder and the guitar I just got lucky. The teachers gave me the pieces and that was it. Luckily, I like most genres and songs.

With the piano, both teacher one and two alway played/play a new piece to me, then ask wether I like it or not. I usually do. Last time though, for some reason, the suggested piece really rubbed the wrong way. No idea why... It was a classical piece and though I love music from that period, I thought it sounded dreadful. I told my teacher and she said: "Ok, how about this one then?" The other piece she suggested I just loved.

Since both pieces are similiar technically, I feel confident that I don't skip something that I can't learn otherwise.

With food, my parents and I worked out a deal over the time: I had to try one bite. If I didn't like it, fine. They didn't force me to eat it.

But with music? I don't have to play it to hear decide I like it or not - I can hear that when teacher is playing. Life is short and practising time rare and precious. There is so much music out there.... Why spend time working on something that I don't like?