Anyone have a great guitar for their kids?
My wife bought a cheapy toy guitar, but you can't even tune it. We have a baby taylor, but that's just a little too big for them for now.
Any ideas? Anyone play a Loog?
What about a real ukulele, small highly playable and only four strings to contend with.
I was thinking along those lines as well. Any recs on something that's easy enough to play and durable but not delicate and appropriately priced for a kid's instrument?
What about a mini Squier?
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/guitars/squier-mini-strat-electric-guitar (http://www.musiciansfriend.com/guitars/squier-mini-strat-electric-guitar)
Cody
man, my boy is five and turning six soon and I can not get him even remotely interested in playing the guitar.
Maybe if I bought a Mindcraft guitar ::)
I couldn't get my daughter interested, but you can't even have a guitar in the same room as my son without him picking it up. Kids are just all different. You can't force it.
I'd go for either a uke or a mandolin (and take half the strings off). Both can be had for under $150 for a decent starter unit. My first stringed instrument was an old El Degas mandolin my dad gave me when I was four. If he only knew then what kind of havoc that would wreak later in life.
At 2years... give'm a few weeks with a uke and they'll nail this.
Can you put better tuners on the toy guitar? We have a toy ukelele that sits around in the fray, and a jay turser Flying V safely up on the wall. The kids are much more likely to pick up the beat-up toy guitar than to take the V off the wall. But they lose interest if it's out of tune.
Quote from: thesameage on June 16, 2014, 03:52:20 PM
I couldn't get my daughter interested, but you can't even have a guitar in the same room as my son without him picking it up. Kids are just all different. You can't force it.
Until they're 18? Hell yes you can! If it will stick afterwards that's another thing but until they're 18 you get to decide. Just like which schools to go to and which religion to attend.
The Epiphone Mandobird iv. A cheap electric 4 string mandolin that is perfect for toddlers. It is solid body and not delicate like a hollow acoustic instrument with a wood bridge. It stays in tune. All 3 of my kids started on it. I tune it EADG like a bass and they can easily translate to bass or guitar when they get bigger. Plus it is super fun to plug it into high gain and shred on. HUGE bends!
I bought my daughter a Jay Turser 3/4 size acoustic guitar. The tuners are MUCH better than the toy piece of junk she had before that.
Quote from: derevaun on June 16, 2014, 04:10:29 PM
Can you put better tuners on the toy guitar? We have a toy ukelele that sits around in the fray, and a jay turser Flying V safely up on the wall. The kids are much more likely to pick up the beat-up toy guitar than to take the V off the wall. But they lose interest if it's out of tune.
I can't... that's how hard it sucks! All good suggestions here, guys. Keep 'em coming.
At 2 my daughter (now 28) was fascinated by my '59 Gibson Country and Western - it's beat and has been hanging by a thread for many, many years but sounds really good. We bought her a uke and she loved it - kept her amused for a few years. She never really progressed to anything more serious though.
I started with a super cheap Monkey Wards folk guitar at 12. Both my nephews started about the same age with Yamaha and Epiphone acoustics - their dad (my younger brother) never had any interest in guitar but still plays the tuba.
I'm starting to lean heavily towards a ukelele. Anyone here know anything about them?
A ukelele would be cool. I've seen a few companies that are making "guitaleles," six string hybrid guitar/ukelele. Never played one, and they are more expensive then an average ukelele you could find. Not sure I'd want to drop $100 on something my 2 year old could potentially put his foot through, haha.
Quote from: thesameage on June 17, 2014, 01:29:02 PM
I'm starting to lean heavily towards a ukelele. Anyone here know anything about them?
My mental image when someone mentions "ukelele" is a six hundred pound Pacific Islander playing a wee, tiny little instrument. People have done very cool things with them, it's just hard for me to lose that mental image.
Whatever you do, don't get a 1/4 size guitar. Go for 1/2 or above. I haven't found a 1/4 that actually has decent enough hardware to make it possible to tune (I teach guitar full time, so I've seen a lot of well meaning parents and grandparents buying guitars that are essentially junk for kids to learn on). I find that the cheap 1/4 guitars are made for the kids to grow out of. There's no point.
For a 2 year old, a uke is a good idea. Not saying it's not possible as all kids are different, but I don't normally teach any under 5 years old privately, and in the schools I teach in they have to be grade 1 or above (~6 years old, with a year of school under their belts in Australia).
My 2 year old is probably unteachable, but he needs something that's not a total toy that will stay in tune!
I don't know if I would spend much over $10 on a guitar for my 2 year old. It would end up in fragments. Something plastic ;-)
Quote from: thesameage on June 18, 2014, 05:11:56 AM
My 2 year old is probably unteachable, but he needs something that's not a total toy that will stay in tune!
My 6yr old is completely unteachable, on all fronts except maybe dancing and doing cartwheels...
I don't think anyone is unteachable, they just need a teaching method measured towards them instead of the one size fits all method most schools use.
Yeah, that sounds good on paper and I mostly agree but in RL, there are some things that no amount of procedure-tailoring/bribing/parental-approval/handholding/punishment will ever make happen until the kid is good and ready to take it in, come hell or high water. ;D
Growing up, Dad played guitar at church, but... it was something Dad did, you know?
At high school, we were given the option of learning guitar... and shown sheets of chords, and told we'd have to memorize them. Guess what happened.
I only got interested in guitar after getting into Oasis and Zakk Wylde.
I ended up ordering a concert sized ukelele for the family. It's the mid-sized one that the kids will be able to play but can grow into and won't be too small for the adults. Comes on monday!
If anyone is interested, I got it from mimsukes.com. I talked to Mim for a while (after doing some research) and she helped me pick out just the right one for us. In fact, she recc'd the one that was $20 less than what I was looking at because she thinks it's a better instrument. All of her sales come with a full setup, as well, which you're not going to get from GC or Amazon (which sells a ton of Ukes).