Hi

My little boy will soon be 4, and on his list of ideas for birthday presents is a drum. I’m keen for him to be able to play a musical instrument and he has a ukulele that he doesn’t play lots, to be honest.

Do you have any ideas for what drum he should get? He had a small wooden drum like this a while ago but it was ‘moved on’ without his or my knowledge! So, it may be that he’d be happy with a simple drum or some sort… I know there are little drum kits for children 3+, but might that be a bit too serious? And what about ear protection?

Cheers

grey_or_black

are you actually teaching him anything or just giving him instruments to figure out on his own?

Go for some sort of lessons aimed at children?

Honestly, I don’t think I’d be a good teacher of the drum, as all I might do is tap my foot or drum on the table! Maybe you’d think that’s a good start 🙂

However, I’ve been learning to play guitar for the past 2 years (the idea being to spark an interest in playing music) using online lessons for the last month, but have started having 1-1 lessons. I grew up thinking that ‘others’ could play music, so want to remove that psychological barrier. I think my guitar tutor does drum lessons too, so that could be an option if he will teach children at such a young age.

I wasn’t sure music lessons were appropriate at such a young age, and have basically jammed (OK, made noise) with my guitar whilst he plays his ukulele. Gets his interest for a little while, sometimes, and today he picked up the ukelele to play to Blondie while he was on his own in the front room. That has happened before (Beatles). I haven’t spoken properly to the guitar tutor or local music shop about the potential birthday present. If a tutor helps him get more out of music so young, I wouldn’t discount it, but wasn’t sure it was something he’d benefit from just yet…

Drumming, I have been lead to believe is fantastic for kids, especially boys:

1 – requires a lot of attention to detail and focus
2 – requires a lot of energy
3 – ITS NOISY! Just what a boy likes
4 – develops coordination that helps with learning allsorts of other skills.

From my experience of having two kids who are pretty good musically I’d say head toward some keyboard lessons aswell. Mine both started at about 4 or 5.
Keyboard is great as it’s easy to produce a recognisable tune – keys are gentle on little fingers, and the notes are always in tune. They can practise with headphones on, and a little money will get something decent enough that’ll produce lots of fun noise.
Also, western music theory is based around what happens on a piano keyboard, giving a great grounding for other instruments.
Both my kids have progressed well with guitar, piano, and music theory, variously grades 5 and 6 across the three disciplines. Sadly I’ve had to say no to drums as we live in a quiet little street, and the noise would be a little too intrusive.

If he’s getting no instruction he’ll not learn anything, he too young to figure it out! 😆

People can start very young with music. There’s a train of thought that music is similar to a language and should actually be taught from being born in that sense.

I don’t have any experience with lessons for children. But I would speak to a specialist child teacher about how to go forward rather than just any random music teacher. I’d imagine processes might be a bit different.