Traditionally, a child learns to play music by being taught how
an instrument works, and learning to play easy pieces that they
practice over and over. They might also play music with other
beginners. All the rules come first -- notes, chords, notation
-- before they play. But with language, young children never
know that they're beginners, Wooten said. No one makes them feel
bad when they say a word incorrectly, and they're not told to
practice that word dozens of times. Why should it be different
with music? "If you think about trying to teach a toddler how to
read, and the alphabet, and all that stuff, before they can
speak, we'd realize how silly that really is," Wooten said.
"Kids most of the time quit, because they didn't come there to
learn that. They came to learn to play." He remembers learning
to play music in an immersive way, rather than in a formulaic
sequence of lessons. When he was born, his four older brothers
were already playing music and knew they needed a bass player to
complete the band.