What I really can’t understand is, why piano? Why not math, science, or education in general? Then at least the hours of grinding might pay off in some more useful and enriching way.
I think it's probably something about a pure signal of child/parental "quality" and resources. You can signal to other parents that your child is brilliant and that you've cultivated their brilliance. Maths/Science is a less effective signal, because a) their school can take the credit, b) academics are usually cheaper and have more practical benefits, so functions less well as a status signal, and c) a parent can show off their child's piano skills at concerts etc. so it's more visible than academics.
It's not just about having something to show off. If a parent doesn't know mathematics or science well enough to keep up themselves, they have to take it on faith their child is getting better. Whereas even a parent who can't play piano could tell a child capable of playing a masterwork faithfully has accomplished something special.
If anything, it's this precise accesibility that hides the foolhardiness. There's maybe a few dozen full-time professional concert pianists in the U.S. You literally have a much better chance of becoming a successful pop singer, and you'd get paid better for less work. Classical music should be studied for fun and enjoyment, unless you actually are both smart enough to be a contender for the position you seek relative to the number of opportunities there are for such a post, and are fanatical enough to be willing to match the ability of even the average pros of your day. If you're not yourself at least kind of a genius, you're better off just doing it for fun.
Counter point: there are tests and competitions for math and science that tell you how well your kids are doing. It is harder to visually see outside of "my kid won the Math Olympiad" but there is lots of outside validation for the parent. For music if you are not a musician yourself, past a certain point the skill level improvement isn't obvious, either. You can tell whether something is better or worse at the low end, but once you hit "sounds about right" that's it. You have to really know the subject to know if a particular piece is really hard or not, and whether the performance is perfect or close enough. For the parent both are hard to judge if they don't have the skills themselves.
For the second party the parent is showing off to, however, music is much easier to appreciate. Just having a kid who can play music nicely at all is impressive, whereas if they see the plaque that says "Winner 2024 Math Olympiad" on the wall they are more likely to ask "Oh, is that some school thing?" than recognize what it is. Music is higher status than math among most people who can't do either one.
It's quite obvious. Even if you're not a pianist, or even just barely know anything about music, it's still clear as day that being able to play the Diabelli Variations is more impressive than being able to play the Moonlight Sonata. And a player capable of playing the Diabelli Variations will be able to do justice to simpler pieces such as the Moonlight Sonata well beyond the level of even a practiced amateur, let alone someone who's only just learned the piece and for whom said piece represents the peak of their skill level. You might not be able to explain it yourself, but the varied dynamics will implant a singerly quality to the work that'll make it sound like you're hearing from much more than just a single instrument:
Now, I apologize for the recording quality of what I'm about to link being absolute ass, but it's just obvious that though they're playing the same piece, Igor Levit is doing a much better job of playing than the non-professional pianist I shall highlight below:
You say that as someone who obviously cares about music a great deal. Most humans can’t tell you what the Diabelli Variations even are, much less whether they are tough or not. There are obvious cases of easier vs harder, just like any skill, but also just like any skill those who don’t practice themselves do not have the capability to understand and appreciate the difficulty of the work or the subtle skill of the player. There is a reason there are a half dozen phrases meaning “can’t appreciate music”.
"A Chinese mother believes that 1) schoolwork always comes first, 2) an A- is a bad grade, 3) your children must be two years ahead of their classmates in math."
But yes, piano is a weird choice considering her contempt for Drama and Crafts. This is her rationale:
"I also wanted Sophia to benefit from the best aspects of American society. I did not want her to end up like one of those weird Asian automatons who feel so much pressure from their parents that they kill themselves after coming in second on the national civil service exam. I wanted her to be well rounded and to have hobbies and activities. Not just any activity, like "crafts," which can lead nowhere--or even worse, playing the drums, which leads to drugs--but rather a hobby that was meaningful and highly difficult with the potential for depth and virtuosity.
In other words: she internalized The Grind so much that even the part of her that realized there's more to life than The Grind decided the best way to approach that part of life is by grinding.
My theory's that it's because, with music, it's possible to tell that somebody's good just by seeing them do what they do long past the point where you'd have any idea how to do it for yourself. Even a stupid person, who knows nothing about music, could tell that anyone capable of playing something like Liszt's B Minor Sonata had accomplished something special within moments of starting to hear a successful performance; but even a smart person can only appreciate the accomplishments of a mathematician only to the point they themselves understand the mathematics, at least based on anything other than faith.
This is yet another reason why we need to be honest about the hereditarian implications of intelligence. Classical music is great, and deserves more love, especially from normies. But learning to play classical music doesn't make anybody any smarter. Asian moms who slavedrive their children into being concert pianists are the yellow equivalent of ghetto moms with NBA dreams. Maybe even worse, given that there's even fewer professional concert pianists in the U.S. today than there are pro basketball players. By an order of magnitude. And NBA players get paid better.
Probably because it’s considered uncouth to admit you care about your kids percentile of income. “How I got my child into the top 1%” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
My older daughter went to a Catholic high school because I wanted her to have a Catholic education. Most of her friends there, however, were non-Catholic refugees from the public school system, sent there by ambitious Chinese and Indian parents who weren’t wealthy enough to afford DC’s more prestigious private schools. And every single one of those kids was unhappy, stressed, harried, and terrified of disappointing their hectoring, demanding parents. Because I was sane and low key our home became a de facto afterschool safehouse. My own kids always knew that if they had performed badly on a test the important thing was for us to work together to figure out where the miscomprehension had happened so they could do better next time. When “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” was published all I had to do was read the reviews to recognize what these poor kids were up against.
Music is a skill you can enjoy your entire life. Most people would prefer to entertain themselves playing music on the piano rather than doing a proof. Also music is social and you can make it as a group and get a lot of emotional benefit. Granted the way Chua went about it seems more likely to destroy the children’s enthusiasm for music…
I agree with you that the tiger mum stuff is idiocy. As you say, her kids will do fine not because of the tiger mothering, but because they are the genetic progeny of 2 high-achieving people.
However, I will disagree slightly about the general benefit of years-long dedicated effort, regardless of the specific area of focus. I think there is something to “learning how to learn” (or perhaps learning how YOU learn), or “learning about work ethic”, that transcends the topic and can provide general value. In my profession, I use very little of what I learned before very specialized training (even the graduate level program itself only provided the fundamentals but very little in specific applicable expertise). But all through those years I perfected (for myself) the way to acquire and retain then apply information. I would not consider it all for naught (although I would also not object to a contention that those skills could have been acquired more efficiently and taken less time).
But you aren’t even describing “learning how to learn”. The type of “learning” Chua does to her children is grinding out the last 0.1% of skill. Sure, this is needed to be the absolute best, but this skill is incredibly different from what it takes to “learn” the first 80% of things.
If it's not spent on something that the child can actually get professional use out of, the effort expended on it should not exceed their possible reward relative to their talent and potential. There's lots of great pianists in the U.S., but most of them are only semi-pro with their playing at best. Only a few dozen can make their living solely as touring concert virtuosi. A few thousand more are even semi-pro. So if you're neither smart nor dedicated enough, you're better off just treating piano playing as a fun hobby, and focusing your intensive efforts on something where you'd have better chance to actually profit from your labors. Whatever that thing is will depend on the parent and the child, but it helps greatly when the parent — or at least a parental figure, like Hammerstein was for Sondheim — also knows enough about the field of study to offer useful advice on how to succeed.
It's been long enough that we should know how her kids turned out by now. Has anyone ever looked them up later? I have no skills at finding out about people like that, but it seems like someone would have done. I hope they are ok.
They have law degrees from Harvard & Yale, and one clerked for Kavanaugh. Probably with their background they would’ve ended up in the exact same spot without piano.
No, I mean do they still play music at all? Do they even still talk to their mom? Etc. I am also assuming they are alright in terms of succeeding in school and careers and the like, but there are lots of ways to not be ok that don't show up on a resume.
Maybe not piano, but do you think young people can have that kind of success without ruthless and relentless flogging from their parents? How is it possible for anyone but the stratospheric talents (think of NBA at the age of 19 equivalents) to get into HYPSM without bitter and unstinting pushing from the parents?
I'm a white guy. My first girlfriend in high school was Chinese, and her father was exactly like this woman. He was a loathesome man. She and her siblings hated him. He was a smoker and died agonisingly of lung cancer. They rejoiced at his death.
That's what Amy Chua has to look forward to...her children celebrating her demise.
I can't imagine any tiger mothers being into classical music for its own sake. Look how small a percentage classical makes up of the music market today. Does low-single-digit popularity reflect a healthy community? Especially given how much effort is put into learning the craft?
It's a shame, because we need more people who like classical music for its own sake. Certainly far more than we need yet more failed prospects who primarily learn to hate the things they play.
I'd be interested in training children intensively in stuff that actually matters. Imagine raising your kid from birth to be the best in the world at Assembly programming languages, or to do chemistry, or something else that could let them change the world
fascinating book. Did you read "The Triple Package" by Amy Chua?. Super interesting argument about why certain minority groups, such as Chinese and Jewish Americans, may achieve greater success relative to their intellectual capacity or socioeconomic background compared to individuals from other cultural groups.
I don't disagree with you if the costs of making your children play the piano excellently are higher than the benefits. I just doubt that the costs are higher than the benefits.
From the looks of the comment section - and my own experience - people severely underrate and in many cases fundamentally misunderstand the benefits of being skilled in the humanities. Being able to play music well as an adult is one of the most valuable gifts you can give to a person. And you can really only give this gift - at least in classical music - by making a child practice against their will.
Again I must stress: being an adult and being able to sit down at the piano and play it well is *extremely valuable*. The pay off is aesthetic and spiritual, but it is real.
There is value to children learning to play a musical instrument, like there is value to children becoming good at a sport. Other than their own pleasure, there is value to being able to do a party piece at someone's house, or to socialise because of their instrument.
But there's a huge difference between being able to play Fur Elise or Claire de Lune well at a party and being able to play Hungarian Rhapsody to concert hall level. And there is little payoff. There is a massive oversupply of everyone in classical music, which is why recitals by really first class musicians are fairly cheap. You can see Yuja Wang or Lang Lang for as little as $40. There isn't much demand for recordings because we are absolutely waist deep in great recordings of everything. There are pages and pages of results for Rachmaninoff's Concertos.
The only value to working to that level is if it's an obsession for the child. That it is all they want to do. So even if they don't make much money, they'll be happy doing it. This is really about the same with things like authors, filmmakers and sports people.
I would even argue that if your kid is obsessed with music, you should, as a good parent, push them into something lucrative so they can play music for fun or as a hobby
Being able to play music is certainly valuable. Is it more valuable than, say, having a happy childhood and a good relationship with your family? Answers may vary, but I suspect most people would say no.
Much less than in trying to be a rapper or a pro-baller, both of which pay better and have less competition.
It's a sub-societal conscientiousness deathtrap. Worst part is the kids often never even bother to learn to like the music for its own sake. If they did, classical music wouldn't make up a low-single-digits percentage of today's music market.
I mean I play guitar just fine based off 1 lesson a week for two years in hs that I really enjoyed. Getting perfect fine motor skills and timing for piano are not the same as actually being good at humanities.
> Again I must stress: being an adult and being able to sit down at the piano and play it well is *extremely valuable*. The pay off is aesthetic and spiritual, but it is real.
The children we raise today ARE THE WORLD of tomorrow, with us, if we're still around then, little more than keepsakes (ask me how I know this). So this IS MUCH MORE than just a question about raising children, or being a parent. This is destiny.
What I really can’t understand is, why piano? Why not math, science, or education in general? Then at least the hours of grinding might pay off in some more useful and enriching way.
Interesting question actually.
I think it's probably something about a pure signal of child/parental "quality" and resources. You can signal to other parents that your child is brilliant and that you've cultivated their brilliance. Maths/Science is a less effective signal, because a) their school can take the credit, b) academics are usually cheaper and have more practical benefits, so functions less well as a status signal, and c) a parent can show off their child's piano skills at concerts etc. so it's more visible than academics.
I suspect you nailed it. Musical kids are more ornamental and academic skills are harder to see, or hear, during a dinner party.
It's not just about having something to show off. If a parent doesn't know mathematics or science well enough to keep up themselves, they have to take it on faith their child is getting better. Whereas even a parent who can't play piano could tell a child capable of playing a masterwork faithfully has accomplished something special.
If anything, it's this precise accesibility that hides the foolhardiness. There's maybe a few dozen full-time professional concert pianists in the U.S. You literally have a much better chance of becoming a successful pop singer, and you'd get paid better for less work. Classical music should be studied for fun and enjoyment, unless you actually are both smart enough to be a contender for the position you seek relative to the number of opportunities there are for such a post, and are fanatical enough to be willing to match the ability of even the average pros of your day. If you're not yourself at least kind of a genius, you're better off just doing it for fun.
Counter point: there are tests and competitions for math and science that tell you how well your kids are doing. It is harder to visually see outside of "my kid won the Math Olympiad" but there is lots of outside validation for the parent. For music if you are not a musician yourself, past a certain point the skill level improvement isn't obvious, either. You can tell whether something is better or worse at the low end, but once you hit "sounds about right" that's it. You have to really know the subject to know if a particular piece is really hard or not, and whether the performance is perfect or close enough. For the parent both are hard to judge if they don't have the skills themselves.
For the second party the parent is showing off to, however, music is much easier to appreciate. Just having a kid who can play music nicely at all is impressive, whereas if they see the plaque that says "Winner 2024 Math Olympiad" on the wall they are more likely to ask "Oh, is that some school thing?" than recognize what it is. Music is higher status than math among most people who can't do either one.
It's quite obvious. Even if you're not a pianist, or even just barely know anything about music, it's still clear as day that being able to play the Diabelli Variations is more impressive than being able to play the Moonlight Sonata. And a player capable of playing the Diabelli Variations will be able to do justice to simpler pieces such as the Moonlight Sonata well beyond the level of even a practiced amateur, let alone someone who's only just learned the piece and for whom said piece represents the peak of their skill level. You might not be able to explain it yourself, but the varied dynamics will implant a singerly quality to the work that'll make it sound like you're hearing from much more than just a single instrument:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EGdL_P2iXE
Now, I apologize for the recording quality of what I'm about to link being absolute ass, but it's just obvious that though they're playing the same piece, Igor Levit is doing a much better job of playing than the non-professional pianist I shall highlight below:
https://frankreport.com/2020/03/15/rare-audio-of-keith-raniere-playing-piano-he-claimed-he-played-concert-level-you-can-judge-for-yourself/
You say that as someone who obviously cares about music a great deal. Most humans can’t tell you what the Diabelli Variations even are, much less whether they are tough or not. There are obvious cases of easier vs harder, just like any skill, but also just like any skill those who don’t practice themselves do not have the capability to understand and appreciate the difficulty of the work or the subtle skill of the player. There is a reason there are a half dozen phrases meaning “can’t appreciate music”.
she does say this about math:
"A Chinese mother believes that 1) schoolwork always comes first, 2) an A- is a bad grade, 3) your children must be two years ahead of their classmates in math."
But yes, piano is a weird choice considering her contempt for Drama and Crafts. This is her rationale:
"I also wanted Sophia to benefit from the best aspects of American society. I did not want her to end up like one of those weird Asian automatons who feel so much pressure from their parents that they kill themselves after coming in second on the national civil service exam. I wanted her to be well rounded and to have hobbies and activities. Not just any activity, like "crafts," which can lead nowhere--or even worse, playing the drums, which leads to drugs--but rather a hobby that was meaningful and highly difficult with the potential for depth and virtuosity.
And that's where the piano came in."
In other words: she internalized The Grind so much that even the part of her that realized there's more to life than The Grind decided the best way to approach that part of life is by grinding.
My theory's that it's because, with music, it's possible to tell that somebody's good just by seeing them do what they do long past the point where you'd have any idea how to do it for yourself. Even a stupid person, who knows nothing about music, could tell that anyone capable of playing something like Liszt's B Minor Sonata had accomplished something special within moments of starting to hear a successful performance; but even a smart person can only appreciate the accomplishments of a mathematician only to the point they themselves understand the mathematics, at least based on anything other than faith.
https://youtu.be/staE5zq7tPQ?si=99Iq7OGnrw-KVSH5
This is yet another reason why we need to be honest about the hereditarian implications of intelligence. Classical music is great, and deserves more love, especially from normies. But learning to play classical music doesn't make anybody any smarter. Asian moms who slavedrive their children into being concert pianists are the yellow equivalent of ghetto moms with NBA dreams. Maybe even worse, given that there's even fewer professional concert pianists in the U.S. today than there are pro basketball players. By an order of magnitude. And NBA players get paid better.
Probably because it’s considered uncouth to admit you care about your kids percentile of income. “How I got my child into the top 1%” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
My older daughter went to a Catholic high school because I wanted her to have a Catholic education. Most of her friends there, however, were non-Catholic refugees from the public school system, sent there by ambitious Chinese and Indian parents who weren’t wealthy enough to afford DC’s more prestigious private schools. And every single one of those kids was unhappy, stressed, harried, and terrified of disappointing their hectoring, demanding parents. Because I was sane and low key our home became a de facto afterschool safehouse. My own kids always knew that if they had performed badly on a test the important thing was for us to work together to figure out where the miscomprehension had happened so they could do better next time. When “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” was published all I had to do was read the reviews to recognize what these poor kids were up against.
Music is a skill you can enjoy your entire life. Most people would prefer to entertain themselves playing music on the piano rather than doing a proof. Also music is social and you can make it as a group and get a lot of emotional benefit. Granted the way Chua went about it seems more likely to destroy the children’s enthusiasm for music…
I never did quite understand why it was a bestseller in the first place. Morbid fascination?
I agree with you that the tiger mum stuff is idiocy. As you say, her kids will do fine not because of the tiger mothering, but because they are the genetic progeny of 2 high-achieving people.
However, I will disagree slightly about the general benefit of years-long dedicated effort, regardless of the specific area of focus. I think there is something to “learning how to learn” (or perhaps learning how YOU learn), or “learning about work ethic”, that transcends the topic and can provide general value. In my profession, I use very little of what I learned before very specialized training (even the graduate level program itself only provided the fundamentals but very little in specific applicable expertise). But all through those years I perfected (for myself) the way to acquire and retain then apply information. I would not consider it all for naught (although I would also not object to a contention that those skills could have been acquired more efficiently and taken less time).
But you aren’t even describing “learning how to learn”. The type of “learning” Chua does to her children is grinding out the last 0.1% of skill. Sure, this is needed to be the absolute best, but this skill is incredibly different from what it takes to “learn” the first 80% of things.
If it's not spent on something that the child can actually get professional use out of, the effort expended on it should not exceed their possible reward relative to their talent and potential. There's lots of great pianists in the U.S., but most of them are only semi-pro with their playing at best. Only a few dozen can make their living solely as touring concert virtuosi. A few thousand more are even semi-pro. So if you're neither smart nor dedicated enough, you're better off just treating piano playing as a fun hobby, and focusing your intensive efforts on something where you'd have better chance to actually profit from your labors. Whatever that thing is will depend on the parent and the child, but it helps greatly when the parent — or at least a parental figure, like Hammerstein was for Sondheim — also knows enough about the field of study to offer useful advice on how to succeed.
It's been long enough that we should know how her kids turned out by now. Has anyone ever looked them up later? I have no skills at finding out about people like that, but it seems like someone would have done. I hope they are ok.
They have law degrees from Harvard & Yale, and one clerked for Kavanaugh. Probably with their background they would’ve ended up in the exact same spot without piano.
No, I mean do they still play music at all? Do they even still talk to their mom? Etc. I am also assuming they are alright in terms of succeeding in school and careers and the like, but there are lots of ways to not be ok that don't show up on a resume.
Ahhh gotcha. I interact with a lot of tiger families and I suspect you’re right. The wounds cut deep.
Maybe not piano, but do you think young people can have that kind of success without ruthless and relentless flogging from their parents? How is it possible for anyone but the stratospheric talents (think of NBA at the age of 19 equivalents) to get into HYPSM without bitter and unstinting pushing from the parents?
> Unless you love music from the bottom of your heart, a career in music is folly
The link is now dead, here’s the web archive version: https://web.archive.org/web/20160215094227/https://www.cvtips.com/career-choice/starting-a-career-in-classical-music.html
I'm a white guy. My first girlfriend in high school was Chinese, and her father was exactly like this woman. He was a loathesome man. She and her siblings hated him. He was a smoker and died agonisingly of lung cancer. They rejoiced at his death.
That's what Amy Chua has to look forward to...her children celebrating her demise.
Does the Tiger mom even listen to music, specifically Classical?
Being really good a playing an instrument does not mean you make good art. The artists making
music that people actually enjoy do not typically take this path into music.
I can't imagine any tiger mothers being into classical music for its own sake. Look how small a percentage classical makes up of the music market today. Does low-single-digit popularity reflect a healthy community? Especially given how much effort is put into learning the craft?
It's a shame, because we need more people who like classical music for its own sake. Certainly far more than we need yet more failed prospects who primarily learn to hate the things they play.
I wonder though if this genetic behavioral aspect meant that Chua would never have been able to overcome this parenting style.
I am curious what your recommendations would be if the answer to your questions are a blend of “yes” and “no.”
I'd be interested in training children intensively in stuff that actually matters. Imagine raising your kid from birth to be the best in the world at Assembly programming languages, or to do chemistry, or something else that could let them change the world
fascinating book. Did you read "The Triple Package" by Amy Chua?. Super interesting argument about why certain minority groups, such as Chinese and Jewish Americans, may achieve greater success relative to their intellectual capacity or socioeconomic background compared to individuals from other cultural groups.
I am skeptical of piano; woodwinds and string instruments are much better, since you can join quartets.
I don't disagree with you if the costs of making your children play the piano excellently are higher than the benefits. I just doubt that the costs are higher than the benefits.
From the looks of the comment section - and my own experience - people severely underrate and in many cases fundamentally misunderstand the benefits of being skilled in the humanities. Being able to play music well as an adult is one of the most valuable gifts you can give to a person. And you can really only give this gift - at least in classical music - by making a child practice against their will.
Again I must stress: being an adult and being able to sit down at the piano and play it well is *extremely valuable*. The pay off is aesthetic and spiritual, but it is real.
There is value to children learning to play a musical instrument, like there is value to children becoming good at a sport. Other than their own pleasure, there is value to being able to do a party piece at someone's house, or to socialise because of their instrument.
But there's a huge difference between being able to play Fur Elise or Claire de Lune well at a party and being able to play Hungarian Rhapsody to concert hall level. And there is little payoff. There is a massive oversupply of everyone in classical music, which is why recitals by really first class musicians are fairly cheap. You can see Yuja Wang or Lang Lang for as little as $40. There isn't much demand for recordings because we are absolutely waist deep in great recordings of everything. There are pages and pages of results for Rachmaninoff's Concertos.
The only value to working to that level is if it's an obsession for the child. That it is all they want to do. So even if they don't make much money, they'll be happy doing it. This is really about the same with things like authors, filmmakers and sports people.
I would even argue that if your kid is obsessed with music, you should, as a good parent, push them into something lucrative so they can play music for fun or as a hobby
Possibly. I know people doing what they love even though it doesn't pay well (an archaeologist and a violinist).
Being able to play music is certainly valuable. Is it more valuable than, say, having a happy childhood and a good relationship with your family? Answers may vary, but I suspect most people would say no.
What is the value?
Much less than in trying to be a rapper or a pro-baller, both of which pay better and have less competition.
It's a sub-societal conscientiousness deathtrap. Worst part is the kids often never even bother to learn to like the music for its own sake. If they did, classical music wouldn't make up a low-single-digits percentage of today's music market.
I mean I play guitar just fine based off 1 lesson a week for two years in hs that I really enjoyed. Getting perfect fine motor skills and timing for piano are not the same as actually being good at humanities.
> Again I must stress: being an adult and being able to sit down at the piano and play it well is *extremely valuable*. The pay off is aesthetic and spiritual, but it is real.
Can you elaborate on this?
The children we raise today ARE THE WORLD of tomorrow, with us, if we're still around then, little more than keepsakes (ask me how I know this). So this IS MUCH MORE than just a question about raising children, or being a parent. This is destiny.
How foolish can you get? Utterly unbalanced view of life.
Which? Chua's? Caplan's? Both (you didn't use plural)?
Chua of course