Tips For Choosing Your Child's First Musical Instrument

Are you the parent of a young child? Are you thinking about having him or her take up learning how to play an instrument? When considering musical instruments to play, there are a few obvious choices and lots of less obvious ones. But deciding which one that your child should actually pick can be tricky. Even if he or she is excited about getting to play, they can be too overwhelmed with the different choices to give much of an opinion. To help you narrow down the choices, here are a few things to consider:

Musical taste: Parents forcing their children to take up playing the piano is an almost universal cliche. However, your child will be more likely to get excited about music lessons if they're learning to play one of the musical instruments used in their favorite music. While piano is great for classical, jazz, and a few other music choices, something like guitar may be a better choice if they prefer rock or pop. Your child still may not like all of his or her music lessons all of the time, but choosing one based on his or her favorite songs may help make arguments less frequent.

Child size: If you choose musical instruments that are the wrong size for your child, he or she may get frustrated or fatigued more easily than usual. For a very small child, for example, you may want to start him or her on a piccolo rather than a flute or a coronet rather than a full sized trumpet. If your child is excited about the thought of taking drum lessons, make sure that there are drum kits that you can purchase that will fit his or her height. Although he or she may start out on a practice pad instead of actual drums, and you may think that you have enough time to find appropriate drums, an avid learner may progress to needing actual drums more quickly than you expected.

Child age: Your child's age can play a huge part in which instrument he or she can play. Many musical instruments can be played by children of all ages, but some are appropriate only for more physically mature children. Brass and woodwind instruments should be avoided by children whose adult teeth haven't yet come in, due to how the instrument is held in the mouth. Playing these types of instruments with baby teeth may impact how the adult teeth come in later on. Before allowing your child to play any brass or woodwind instrument, it's a good idea to check with your child's dentist or orthodontist to make sure that your child's teeth won't be impacted.

For more help with musical instruments, contact a business like Wilmington Jewelry & Loan.


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