Need some help, how young before a child be before they can learn classical piano? the reasion i asked is that i had a discussion with my kids tutor about my kids playing different piano styles, pop , classical etc. she said they are too young. they are working towards taking their grade 1 exams at the end of the year. is this so? i have two boys who enjoy learning and playing the piano , but the younger - 6 seems to be more competitive and the older -7 is losing interest. we have decided to use different books now, but i think wont it be much better if they play different stlyes - pop, jazzy or classical.

I'm not sure I understand

If they are working towards grade 1, at least one of the pieces they play will be classical, so they can't be too young to learn classical!

Quite a lot of the music I give the young pupils to practise would be classical in style, but we do a mixture.

I had my first piano lesson in January 1953, two months before my 6th birthday

I can't see what the problem is with different styles, however young the child. Surely this is the best time to expose them to as many different styles as possible, before they acquire any negative pre-conceptions about type of music. Perhaps the teacher thinks they will get confused if they are learning one style for an exam, but I think that is unlikely..

I too am slightly puzzled by this ... I agree that a mix of styles goes down well and seems to work best.
I like to find out what kind of music a pupil enjoys as early a possible - hopefully lots of different styles, but a narrow diet does little to help them find out.

yeah, i don't think there is really such a thing as being 'too-young-to-play-classical-music.'. I mean, if they are taking the grade 1 exams, they will already be playing classical music anyway. I agree with the others, it's better to have lots of different styles in the beginning before they make up their minds too early and wrongly take a narrow pathway rather than an open and varied pathway.

Too young? At 7? They might be too old, but never too young. The idea that anyone is too old or too young for any style of music is nonsensical.

I started at 4 and was perfectly able - plenty are

I don't remember ever thinking much about what styles I preferred though. I got lots of different music, but at that age I just played whatever I was given to practise without a fuss.

Playing different types of music when you're younger gives you an idea of what you prefer or might excel at, so plenty of variety is a good thing, I think.

I would have thought that, as you say, grade 1 seven year olds will be playing a variety of styles but without necessarily putting a name to them. Even in tutor books there is the odd "classical" piece but it is not usually labelled as such - only the composer's name gives it away. My daughters have always expressed preferences for pieces they play but these are not formulated by type of music. It is more likely to be something like "I don't like that one because it's too sad" or sometimes more imaginatively along the lines of "I like this one because it makes me think of a tiger prowling through a jungle and jumping out on its prey."

Thanks all for the guidance, I would have a word with the tutor on Thursday.