^ i agree
bella said:
I started on the shittiest cheapest electric I could get my hands on - it gave me callouses and pain that eventually helped a ton when I was good enough to get a better one.
same here, my first guitar was a piece of junk. cost $300 AUD brand new
with an amp.
as i got better, i slowly accumulated better instruments - which i both appreciated, and used to help me become a better player
i now have a very high-end gretsch electric guitar and a vintage early 60s acoustic - and i think if i'd not started with basic, cheap instruments, and upgraded when i could afford to (or when i needed something better because the sound of my cheap strat-copy didn't cut it onstage in a decent band) - i may not fully appreciate their quality. but that's rather subjective i guess.
a friend of mine got a really nice fender jazzmaster for his first guitar - and he turned out to be a prolific songwriter with several different bands and international recording deals....
but anyway, i think herby's suggestion of a ukulele is a great idea for a 5 year old.
kids that young can't really be relied upon to take good care of a more expensive instrument, plus a full-size guitar would most likely be too big for him to properly hold and play.
you can tune the 4 stings of a ukulele to guitar tuning (DGBE) for playing abridged versions of guitar chords - or if you stick to ukulele tuning, the chords are pretty easy to pick up, and not as much of a handful as open chords in standard guitar tuning.
my suggestion would be to get a short-scale acoustic guitar - probably a half-scale, or maybe a 3/4 sized classical.
at 5, i don't think his tastes in musical styles will be developed enough to worry about style or sound too much - when you're learning the basics (some open chords and a scale or two [depending on what type of guitar player he might be - that's all i ever learned, because i'm just a rock'n'roller, not a jazz or classical guitarist]) that's all that matters IMO - we all sound like crap at first, and the essential elements are all there
i'd recommend a classical guitar, simply because nylon strings are easier on the fingers for a beginner (especially a little tyke)
Funnily enough, my folks gave me a ukulele when i was about 5 because i wanted a guitar.
Problem was, though, i was never taught how to play it. it was a 'toy' in the way a tonka truck or a plastic dinosaur is - i never got any sort of musical learning from it (except i
may have tried to smash it, pete townshend style when i got a little older
)
i wish they'd made some kind of effort to teach me a chord or two - and keep the thing in tune - when i was a little kid, because that ukulele was basically a waste of their money.
my ambition to play guitar had to wait another 10 years, when i picked it up in high school, and really took to it.
with a little patience, ukuleles can be strummed by almost anyone, with just a tiny bit of musical knowledge. it's a great starter instrument - but you may just want to skip that and go for a guitar.
as for lessons - if you can find a good (and fun) teacher, i think that's the way to go.
when i was trying to learn guitar as a teenager, my old man showed me a few open chords - but i couldn't really get my head around how they applied to playing the sort of guitar music i was interested in; they just seemed like clunky, folky abstract sounds to me, and i didn't get too far with them.
a few months after that attempt went nowhere, i enlisted the help of one of my friends' guitar teachers.
he was a cool, slightly shifty older guy who had been playing in rock'n'roll and blues bands for decades.
he showed me some basic chords, and a scale or two - but he would also say to me "you got a song do you want to learn?"
i would then stick something on the stereo that seemed reasonably playable, and he would show me how to play the riff or whatever - and write down tabs for me to practice it and play for him the following week.
i never learned how to read music, and i still know very little about formal music theory - but i'm a reasonably accomplished musician in a very minor way. i mean, i've been in lots of bands, been a working musician for about 15 years and released 4 or 5 albums.
however you go about teaching a kid music, they'll either take to it, or they won't. and if he doesn't now - that's no reason he won't in future.
i actually had to battle my parents to get any sort of support in learning guitar, because they sort of dismissed it as something that wasn't worthwhile - perhaps because the earlier (half arsed) attempts to teach me to play something didn't work out - but fortunately i was pretty determined.
i think teaching a kid to play music is one of the best gifts you can give them - i can't overstate how much joy i get from playing music, or how much it has enriched my life.
quite a few people i know had bad experiences with overly formal music classes in their early childhood, which held them back from ever learning an instrument again. most people i know seem to say it was piano lessons that did this - but i'm reminded of the other instrument i failed to learn as a kid (which is funny because i'm a multi-instrumentalist nowadays) - the recorder.
i don't know if it's something done mainly in Australian schools, but we were forced to play recorder in early primary school - and i've since heard that it is this experience that puts a lot of people off ever learning an instrument, because recorders are actually very difficult instruments to play
well.
when you hear a trained musician competent with woodwinds playing recorder, it's a beautiful sounding instrument - but in the hands of a dribbling 7 year old, they almost always sound like absolute shit!
guitars are
much more forgiving instruments than recorders (and pianos) - and you don't need a great deal of technical music knowledge to strum a couple of chords and feel the wonderment of making music.
i think your best bet is to get the kid a basic guitar, and a teacher that isn't too dry, intimidating or serious (even if the teacher is you - aided by youtube tutorials or something if need be)
when he starts selling out stadium gigs, be sure to put my name on the guest list ok? %)
edit - aw dang - this thread is ancient !
did you end up getting the lad an instrument?
