Kids music lessons - (merged)

allycat999

My eldest is learning the keyboard, which cost £100 to buy her as we bought it new. Her lessons cost £10 for half an hours tuition which is private one to one tuition after school.

devils_advocate

Have a word with your son's school music teacher. They should be able to advise something to suit your son's style/character. It took me a long time to realise thatone teacher would only recommend the trombone to boys who played in the front row of the scrum! (He's just taken Grade 4, and is 13)

Otherwise, ask your son what he wants. If my trombonist wanted another instrument, it would be the bagpipes!

Singing is very different to playing an instrument. My 10 year old is doing this, but its a different challenge to get him to practice. His school do 'concerts' of individual performances in front of a sympathetic audience of about 70 -80 parents, just to get the kids used to performing in public, and he'll play piano quite happily but is far more reluctant to sing. Being non-musical myself, I don't think that the singing theory helps greatly.

What will make a phenominal difference is the teacher. If your kid and a teacher don't gel, get another teacher before giving up. Waht works for a neighbour's kid may not work for yours, and vice versa.

Edited to add - should have answered your question on the financial side more clearly. Pick the wrong instrument, and it'll be cheap, because your son will give up after afew weeks/ months! With the right instrument, there's generally ways to hire / borrow / buy new / buy secondhand which you can look into once your son is started. The teacher can give good advice, as they'll know their speciality.

Savvy_Sue

Music lessons aren't cheap, whatever instrument you learn. But I'd say think small rather than large: carrying a flute or clarinet to and from school on the bus with your PE kit is much easier than a double bass, say.

I'd also say avoid violins etc if you're not a musical family, simply because he (and you) have to 'hear' what he's playing to get it right, and that can be quite hard.

And I'm no real musician, but I'd say that voice training or singing, if he's up for it, would do nothing but good.

inkie

If he were to learn brass, then the fingering is all the same, and so could then swap and chage to any 3-valved brass instrument. Perpatetic lessons at school usually cost about £60 per term. The other option is to find a local brass band who have intruments and go along there for free tuition.

Oldernotwiser

You could also start listening to more music as this would help his development. You might also enjoy it as well!

andyrules

whitewing wrote: »

Hi All,

Just looking from a purely financial perspective, what would be a good instrument for a 10 year old boy to learn.

We are not a musical family & don't really listen that much to music (too busy logging on here!). Let's also assume that he is up for the challenge, would do the daily practice and would aim to reach a level of mastery eventually that would allow him to perform as part of a group in public at a school function.

So,consider in terms of tuition, cost of lessons, cost of instrument and anything else you vibrant and creative bunch can think of....

One final question for now, would singing lessons/voice training help improve his musical skills in the same (or a different) way? (Told you I'm not musical, if this is a daft question)

I look forward to reading your responses....

From a financial pov, woodwind instruments tend to be more expensive than string, when you compare student models.

Someone said small rather than big, if your DS needs to travel around then this will definitely impact on cost!

Worth looking in to - some LEAs have schemes for borrowing instruments and buying them on cheap terms, and are VAT-free if the child has lessons in school. Bear in mind some of the LEA instruments can be well worn and not well maintained - an unresponsive instrument is not the best start for a beginner. The peripatetic lessons are a good start but you don't get to choose the teacher and students often share lessons.

If you decide to buy outside your LEA sceme (which tends to use solid brands) then beware of cheap foreign imports. If your DS decides on woodwind, I would be happy to share our experiences with models, but you'd have to pm me as I can't really recommend a brand on the forum.

HTH

Justie

definitely talk to the school first - some will have loan instruments or will know how to get them. Often there are Saturday morning workshops that pupils can go to what work out cheaper than individual lessons where the pupil will get theory lessons and chances to sing or play in an ensemble as well as tuition in their instrument. I would see which he prefers, brass, reed (sax, clarinet etc), string (guitar, violin etc - although most violinists will have been playing for a few years already). Often loudness appeals to boys so brass is often popular. Guitar would give him lots of options as he could do classical or play rock/pop. Piano is a good option as a keyboard can be bought reasonably cheaply (and comes with headphones!) and once you can read music for the piano you can read music for anything which can be a big advantage if he wants to try other instruments later on.

Singing can be a good alternative but it's easy to get lazy and not learn the theory etc and often hard to get good tuition unless he's willing to look into church choirs etc. He can probably learn to sing alongside an instrument if he gets a place at one of the Saturday music clubs.

Musicality is a great thing to learn and he's at a good age but the key is to get an enthusiastic teacher and to find something he likes and can achieve a certain amount of success in quite quickly.

Penny_Watcher

For a starting instrument how about the good old descant recorder?

DD2(10) has been learning for about a year. The recorder itself cost about £6 and the lessons are free at school. This way she's learning to read music and play a "simple" instrument before moving on to something a bit more complicated.

(Also in true MSE fashion I didn't want to shell out for an expensive instrument if she wasn't going to stick at it )

ellawood

My dd started volin when she was 8 playing at school in group lessons which was approx 3.oo a lesson which was not to exepensive but as she went on the cost did mount we used to hire at 1st she went thou 3 volin sizes in one year! then she changed to the Viola which she loved if you are not keen on squeeky notes the Viola has a much nicer sound she has just stopped lessons now but I was paying 13.00 for half hour lesson she has just done GCSE music which she would not have done whithout playing music it is a lot of money but I do think it has done her good and would pay for it all again in fact I also have had a go at learning the volin and had lessons with the same teacher for over 2 years as I never had the chance when I was younger

catz1ct

Has to be a guitar! They can begin playing a lovely classical guitar and then by the time they get to 16 can progress onto annoying the hell out of you with some heavily distorted electric guitar at silly volumes to impress their friends! Worked for me! :D