Best Starting Instruments for Children – Piano, Voice, Guitar or Drums

Guest article provided by: losangelesmusicteachers.com

Most parents have already heard that their kids benefit from learning how to play a musical instrument for sharpening their mind. It also gives them a fun hobby that is much better for their growth than video games, but it’s often hard to choose which one makes the most sense for their child. In this article, we discuss the various instruments and what makes them the most popular and what makes them physically easy to play.

Our first consideration that we recommend for an instrument is the piano. The piano is not only physically one of the easiest instruments to play but it can also be very inexpensive to get started with a small electric keyboard to see if your child shows an interest in it. 

It’s been suggested that the piano should be the first instrument taught. When a key is pressed on especially an electric piano, it produces an instant sound. This is unlike the guitar, which requires a bit of time to get the fingers to be able to push down the strings enough to get a full resonant sound. The voice or any wind instrument also requires a few lessons to be able to develop a sound which is good enough to be able to then focus on making melodies. Drums can also be a good starting instrument in this same way, but drums require a lot of coordination with the hands and feet to be able to make anything that would be considered a musical sound, whereas a piano student can sound good learning little melodies in the very first lesson.

There are other reasons why the piano is a great beginning instrument. First, it’s the only instrument that can play such a wide range of the musical scale. The piano is a great foundation for all other musical instruments. The piano is considered to be a percussion instrument like it’s relatives the vibraphone, xylophone, celeste and bells. Very young children can learn to play just the right hand or left hand only, until they are able to put their two hands together. With just a few months of piano lessons, all other instruments will be easier to learn. 

Pianos also allow the person to play multiple notes at a time (chords like the guitar), which means that a pianist can play chords with his left hand and melodies with his right hand and doesn’t take a long time for a student to reach this level.

If your child shows an interest in guitar lessons, if they have really tiny hands we recommend starting them on Ukulele. It’s the relative of the guitar but is a little simpler to learn and can be bought for under 100.00 for a beginning Ukulele. Violin is very similar to the guitar in that it has strings on a fretboard and takes a bit of time to build up the coordination and strength in the hands as well as the coordination of the bow in the other hand.

Voice in combination with a little bit of piano can also be a great way to get a child started learning about and making music. If your child is singing little songs and can sing in tune then they can learn to be a vocalist. Voice training begins with developing the ear so that the student can hear a note and be able to sing that specific pitch. If your child shows an interest in singing, it can be very fun for them to have a few voice lessons to help them to develop their voice and ability to hear little songs and sing in tune.

Here at Los Angeles Music Teachers, we have some amazing teachers who our students adore. Our motto is, if you don’t absolutely LOVE your first music lesson, whatever the instrument you choose, you don’t have to pay for it. We are very confident that you will love our teachers! They will help your child to appreciate the joy of making music.

If you need more ideas for activities in music or art, visit The Spencer Adventures at https://thespencersadventures.net