Flute, guitar or piano?

[Iwishiwasagiraffe]

My dd is 9 and in year 4. She already does singing lessons and will take her grade 2 next year. She has a good musical ear but not incredible concentration. However she copes fine in her 20 minute singing lesson and enjoys it. She wants to learn a musical instrument in year 5 and is torn between piano, guitar and flute. We have an electric piano with weighted keys in the house. I have some knowledge of it because I did grade 4 piano a million years ago but my sight reading is dreadful now. I have no experience of guitar or flute.

does anyone have any recommendations of the best instrument for her? She loves singing so I was leaning toward piano or guitar so she could sing and play. Any advice gratefully received!

If she has access to a local music service, then honestly an orchestral instrument opens so many doors. DS plays a string instrument, and worked his way through all of the groups and orchestras, and now plays in the local youth orchestra, county youth and school groups. It's become a huge part of his social life, he's been on two European Tours etc.

He actually plays piano too, which is useful from.a musical point of view. But his orchestral instrument is by far his favourite.

Thanks all lots to think about re the orchestral groups which to be honest I’d not really factored into consideration before. She did like the pbuzz and they all played it together with other schools playing other instruments as part of a big multi school orchestra thing which she enjoyed.

In our local county bands and orchestras, percussionists were selected from children who were learning piano, because they had learnt to read music. I have no idea if this is common.

This is exactly what happened to dd. She has rocketed her way through percussion because she can play piano - this transfers directly onto xylophone, glockenspiel, marimba etc; she can also read music and keep time well.

Piano will give her the best understanding of things like harmony and both the treble and bass clef and would be the instrument she could go and have a nice play on when she's an adult but the flute could be more social as she could join groups and orchestras

When my DD was in primary she was set on learning the "golden harp" after seeing and hearing one played on Young Musician of the year. I knew it was entirely out of our budget, so I found a few youtube videos introducing various orchestral instruments and we had a look at those. From that she shortlisted the clarinet. At the same time her school had a variety of student musicians from the local high school visiting to perform in assembly and that cemented her decision. What is lovely is as a high school student, she now performs at local primaries and we've seen A LOT of clarinetists coming through to her school who were inspired by her playing.

Probably doesn't help you much! But remember whatever she starts with isn't necessarily the only thing she'll play. DD has played other woodwind instruments and also plays the bass guitar in a band. I avoided piano lessons because of her dyslexia, but she has always enjoyed playing around on it and has since taken a few lessons at school.

Thanks so much. My dd also wanted to play harp as we’re in wales and she sings Cerdd Dant which is with a harp. However, sadly, I definitely cannot afford a harp!

If she wants to play in groups I’d say not the piano (if you’ve got a keyboard she can always teach herself the basics if she’s musically inclined anyway, which is what I did).

I echo others about if she enjoyed pbuzz point her towards brass. Trombone is probably the most versatile as she can then access bands and orchestras, but any brass is sociable.