clarinet or violin...........?

[Sianbc]

Ciaran aged 5 has just started to have an interest in music.
His school is now offering extra-curricular violin or clarinet lessons to small groups. Does anyone know if these would be of any use to a beginner - I was thinking more of piano to start with but a) dont have a piano -just a computer musical keyboard and b) no recommended teachers in our rural area.
The school does have recorder group from year 4 but Ciaran is just year 1.
Any comments please?

Hmmm.. You know your child. My boys are both very musical, as are my husband and I, but I wouldn't consider them having formal instrument lessons until they are at least 7. I would love them to have singing lessons, or join a proper choir before then, or to do some small group music (percussion instruments, theory of music, rhythm, etc.), and I am investigating these possibilities. I had piano lessons at 5, and think that is usually too early for a child unless they are exceptionally motivated, and extremely well co-ordinated.

Our primary school does not offer instrument lessons until the children are in year 3.

It's just my opinion. Obviously others disagree - Suzuki violin method encourages teaching children violin from age 3.

Not sure about clarinet - you can get half or even quarter size violins, for tiddlers, but I don't know about clarinets.

I would be reluctant to progress with a main instrument such as the clarinet or violin without a basic start in recorder or piano.

Recorder is ideal to start with, they can hold and blow it without hardly any effort (sometimes a little stretch for the bottom little finger), so can concentrate and have fun with learning the music and notes.

Then I would go on to piano as it gives you such a good musical grounding, you are learning both bass and treble clefs (left and right hands!) Its terrible that there are no teachers in your area, even for beginners.

Violin and clarinets are both hard work to begin with, the violin with posture and awful sounds/shrieking that dont inspire much confidence when you are trying to learn to play it AND learn to play music at the same time. Clarinet is very tricky blowing to get a sound.

Do you have a music shop near you just to hold and practice these instruments so you can see what I mean and see for yourself. I would wait to see how your child progresses musically with the recorder before you shell out on an expensive instrument (whether hiring or buying).

You could do recorder at home whilst he is still young, there are some very easy books to start with, you wouldnt need any experience at all. A book I would recommend is "Recorder from the beginning" by John Pitts. And then if he gets really good at the recorder I'm sure school would let him join the club a few years earlier.

So thats my own little musical opinion, if you really still want to do violin or clarinet, I'd choose violin.

sian, i am surprised your achool doesn't start recorder before Y4 but is offering violin and clarinet before that. (our primary school also begins other instruments in Y3.)
i agree with the others; he would be better starting with something simple at 5. in some ways piano would be better than either fiddle or clarinet.
is there a music shop near you, even if no teachers that you know of, where you could buy a simple piano beginners' book and start the basics yourself? (my kids' piano teacher uses the "alfred" books - they are american and talk about quarter notes rather than crotchets, etc, but apart from that they are simple and enjoyable.)

good luck, anyway, knowing music is a valuable skill.

Would definitely suggest something like recorder first to learn the basics of music and then progress to a more difficult instrument later. I played both the violin and clarinet at school and would recommend the clarinet - I found it a more versatile instrument - played in classical orchestra and a 'wind band' which played more sort of 'swing' music (god that makes me sound old!!). Still regret that I never graduated to Sax from clarinet - that's such a fantastic instrument!
Incidently, can anyone recommend any really good books/ tapes/ instruments etc for introducing toddlers to music? My son is only 22 months, but loves 'dancing' and banging around to music - I'd like to encourage and develop it more. I know there are national groups like Kindermusik/ Jo jangles etc but they all seem to be during the week when I'm at work.

Hi, just joined and read the last message hence the delay. I have had the same problem with my toddler joining groups. I've actually found that percussion instruments are the obvious choice to go along with some singing and dancing. Be carefull what you buy though cos some so called childrens musical instruments are worse than useless and can often be more expensive and easily broken than the proper thing. ELCentre do some lovely sturdy shakers, maracas, tambourine etc but still be careful with some of their other stock e.g funny plastic guitar things! Any decent music shop should be able to get hold of 'Percussion Plus' instruments. There's loads to pick from, well made, great sounds even down to some in the shape of animals for the smallest of kids. We keep our percussion in a little clothes case which he can easily carry/drag about - he loves it.
P.S. He also loves singing, dancing and doing actions to the 'Tweenies Songtime' videos/dvds - some of the tracks are first class.

Yes, agree about ELC stuff. Dd1 got a rather weird "saxophone" for Xmas which is really hard to get notes out of and also the notes go the wrong way ie it goes up in pitch as you go down the saxophone (the opposite way to the recorder, so could be confusing).

I agree that it's best to start with something easier like the recorder. Also I agree that there's no real hurry to start more difficult instruments and it might actually put a child off to start too young (frustration and "horrible" starting noises!)

I learned the violin at school but was utterly, utterly useless. However, if I wished I'd learned any musical instrument it would have to be the piano. It's such a lovely skill to show off anywhere there is a piano, which is quite a lot of places. You never see a violin lying around, and people saying, 'Oh, does anyone play the violin?' do you?

I'm a professional musician, (you couldn't guess that from my name could you!) and I agree that the recorder is a good starting point, particularly for learning to read music. The piano can be difficult to learn before about age 6 or 7, largely because of hand size, and development of muscles in the fingers.

My thought is that if you are debating between a wind and string instrument, before about age 10, always go for the string - particularly the violin. It helps develop your ear for tuning, as you have to 'make' the note yourself whereas on a wind instrument it is largely down to the combination of keys. Before age 10 or 11 it is very hard for a child to learn a wind instrument (with the possible exception of the flute) because their lungs physically aren't big enough. Also, the wind instruments don't come in different sizes for little fingers as the string instruments do. Lastly, if your child wants to play in school orchestra or to go further, there are far more opportunities for violinists, as there are 20 or 30 violinists, compared to 2 or 3 clarinettists.

Some children can find piano hard, because of the independence of the two hands, and a melody instrument can be easier, but as aloha says, you can always find times to play the piano. (Piano is my instrument incidentally, and I'm not a string player in case you thought I was biased!).

So I would recommend, start off on recorder, or violin, and then if they want to do a wind instrument later, they've got a good musical grounding. (Lots of schools will lend you instruments, so it needn't be really expensive buying different instruments). I definitely want ds to start violin early on.

Does anyone take their little ones to Monkey Music classes, dont know if they are all over the country.

Yes Ems, I do.
We started at a local music class which stopped due to illness and a MM group started instead, taking most of the original group on. DD loves it, gets a bit worried when monkey goes on holiday but quickly gets back into routine. Like all these things much depends on the teacher though, our original one set the scene really well but her recent replacement has a different character and I'm seriously thinking of changing classes, mainly cos dd is getting too old for the class she's with at the moment

Used to go to monkey music when we lived in Bromley. now we're on Devon so had to stop. DS1 loved it- recently I found the MM page on the web and he was really excited. We stil "jump up high as tall as a tee" fairly regularly so ds2 is learning it now. Monley is still ins ds1's bed as well.

Another MM fan here - dd did it from about 6 months to 3.5 (then started at playgroup) and ds started at about 14 months, and loves it!

To add a different perspective, I started clarinet lessons at age 9, went on to gain grade 8 by age 16 and have loved every minute of it - I play it nearly every day and play in 2 local ensembles and an infrequent informal orchestra. I LOVE my clarinet and am a total wind snob - violins just dont measure up at all!

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DD's school does recorder in Y2, then when they are entering Y3 they have a 'tooth check' to see which instrument will suit them

I have a clarinet for sale if anyone is interested ( I have two) DD and DS gave up after grade 3

I played it as a child and still love to get it out and play occasionally

As a former clarinet player myself, I'd advise against it for a youngster (under 9 or 10) for all the reasons given previously. My sister is a piano teacher, and she used to suggest children didn't start learning until around 7, when they could already read, although she's been recently teaching at a prep school where children as young as 4 have asked to start learning, and has changed her view on this as some 4 and 5 year olds are obviously getting so much out of it. (She's a very gentle teacher and does lots of fun clapping games, so it's not too formal for them).
I'd love ds to learn the piano. He's 4, and obviously quite musical ? well, makes quite a nice noise tinkling about on the high notes, making a sound like a mouse, doing giant footsteps on the low notes ? but he's nowhere near reading yet, so don't want to put him off with formal lessons. I wondered whether anyone (Musica, perhaps?) knew anything about learning Jazz piano, since I gather this can be taught without having to read music. Does anyone have any views on this?

I have come a bit late to this discussion and haven't read all the replies, so apologies if I repeat anything.

I started playing the recorder in primary school, probably aged about six or seven and it was a good base to start with, learning to read music etc. When I was about 9 or 10 I started to learn the piano, although we only had an electric keyboard at the time, after a while when my parents saw I was serious about music they bought a piano (did have a career in music planned but changed my mind). Around about age 11 I started oboe lessons (IMO horrible wind instrument that sounds rather like a strangled duck), these lessons were through the school and although it was my desire to play the clarinet or flute, the oboe was all that was on offer. However playing the oboe earned me a place in the school orchestra and I thoroughly enjoyed playing in the orchestra. I would now love a piano again and hope some day to buy one.

I have a friend who played violin from a young age and she very much enjoyed that and played with an youth orchestra for a while, she still has her violin and plays from time to time.

IMO you cannot go wrong encouraging your child to learn a musical instrument although tend to agree that a wind instrument would probably be too difficult at the moment for a five year old, although there is plenty of time, even if he starts on something else just now he could pick it up later. I still get pleasure from musical knowledge as it has enabled me to teach myself basic guitar playing and nick DH's electric guitar from time to time, well I have to do something while I wait for my piano!

Frieda, I don't know very much about teaching jazz piano, but the Associated Board now do Jazz exams - it might be worth looking at their website which is Associated Board They do a book called 'Learning Jazz piano' but it's aimed at older children.

My feeling is that jazz is actually quite complicated for a little one - there is still a lot of theory involved, learning things like the Blues Scale etc, but they can get quite far in 'classical' piano without reading - what I do when teaching is to do some by ear (starting off by simple things like going up and down). You can then do lots of simple tunes using hand positions - put ds' right hand with thumb on middle C, and number the fingers 1-5 - you can then do tunes by number instead of reading the music. Quite a few nursery rhymes need an A (i.e. no.6) and you can either call this a 'stretchy note',(stretch the little finger) or a 'crossed over' note (i.e. with the left hand).Things like Twinkle Twinkle or Frere Jacques work well like this.

You can also get them to learn the notes of the piano by playing 'words' - e.g. 'bead', 'baggage', 'cabbage', etc. - my little ones seem to like this. And if you wanted to start them reading, getting them to work out the words from the music is quite a good way - write the notes, and they identify them and find the word. I think the key is to do short amounts, and keep it fun!

As far as other instruments, sorry if I implied that clarinets couldn't play in orchestras - of course they can, I just really found that as a flautist I was often left out of orchestras, (because I was 'too busy' according to the music teachers), but had I been a violinist there would have been no problem.

what a lot I've learned from this thread. We are thinking of starting music lessons for our 8 year old ds, but are hesitant. I am really glad I now have reasons for him to delay starting a wind instrument, even though his school have several availiable and are encouraging year threes and above to take them up. I just did not feel it was right for him, but now I do not have to feel guilty for holding back!

My ds says he would love to learn to play the guitar, but I think he lacks the will to practice till he gets a chord. At least the piano offers instant gratification, and the recorder is easy-ish, too.

Just for the record, sianbc, I know of a little girl who took up violin aged about five ( now aged nine) and she happily plays it still.

I did violin at school for about 18 months and could only just about scratch out 'There is a Happy Land'. BUT, did have it restored a few years ago and will, of course, 'make' my daughter do it so I can live vicariously.

Frieda I don't think children have to be able to read properly before they start learning piano but it does help a great deal if they know the alphabet! My dd began learning at 4 and has been having weekly lessons for a year and a half. She is progressing wonderfully well and can play with both hands now. However, the thing about piano (and of course any musical instrument) is that constant practice is vital. 5 minutes each day is better than half an hour once a week. I wouldn't say that the piano is "easy" there are many things to learn at the same time but I believe it helps a lot with maths and, for dd, her ballet as well.

CAM, they can learn music before they can read and, if they have a musical family, can do incredibly well.

I have a friend with a daughter like this (first child) and she can, now aged 21, sight read anything, and play virtually any instrument first time she picks it up. I say she is gifted (her father is a wonderful late-comer musician and her maternal grandfather is a professional performer/composer), her mother insists that because she was taught early - really early, around 18 months or thereabouts - that's all that counts...take your choice.

They have 3 other children who have not done nearly as well musically but then they didn't have the early input either.