Musical Instrument Advice

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You can get a small keyboard for $20 probably. My kids have a couple of those plus a half scale acoustic guitar and a 3/4 scale electric guitar. They don't really play those though, just bang around on the strings...my kids are 3 and 5. We also have an electronic drum set, but it's crap...avoid anything made by First Act! It will be junk and bound to make your son give up!

We also have an electric piano and multiple electric guitars for mom and dad...we are not pushing the kids but with all these instruments around we are hoping they will take an interest in actually learning some day.

How about bongo drums -- the kind you play with your hands instead of sticks? Or a cheap wooden xylephone?

I think a music therapy class or a teacher who is into just learning to jam instead of traditional lessons might be good (looking for this for my DS.)

I play guitar decently well and my motor skills needed an OT intervention and overall are still not that great at all.

I think it helps alot to find one with a thick neck(most cheap ones and electrics are really thin so watch out), decently wide string spacing and it has to have a really good set-up with the lowest string height possible, light guage strings may help also. Theres a science to making these things work for people like me and its the difference between a painful hand and missing chords and being able to play the harder chords, my guitar set-ups are somewhat abnormal to everyone else. Not all full size guitars are made with the same scale length(this determates the length/spacing of the frets) to check this take a tape measure from the 12th fret to the top of the 1st ret and times that by 2, most adult guitars are 25-25 1/2".

I made my own electric guitar partly for these reasons, if your good at woodworking perhaps you could get an unfinished neck(easy for bolt on electric guitars) and profile it yourself to your kids hands, I tought myself this stuff as it is a special intrest of mine, it can be very fun and rewarding. Theres a reason why so meny NTs quit learning guitar so quick and its not just fine motor skills.

If an AS child can figure out how to play guitar that can make them better off socally I imageine not that I had the chance to find out, most popular songs now a days only require easy 2 finger power chords now a days anyway not that I am encourageing that however thats how it is.

Rapidroy's post brings one issue to mind....

Sometimes having the cheap alternative laying around can give you the opposite results. Because they don't feel right, or sound right, they can turn a kid off of them. For instance, we bought DS a cheapo drum kit when he was four. For the longest time he didn't want anything to do with drums, until he played around on a real set. I'm not suggesting that everyone needs to go and spend thousands, but please avoid buying toys and considering them instruments.

You might consider some varieties of ocarina. The more child-friendly ones will cost anywhere from $5-40 depending on seller, model, and material, and some sellers offer cute shapes like animals and fruits or models based off of the Legend of Zelda video games. Many of these smaller novelty ones might bother your son's hearing, though.

While speed or complexity requires dexterity, simple or slower songs are more manageable. A beginner will have to learn some basic techniques which require practice, and from my experience you can create a better sound sooner on ocarinas that are not made of plastic.

These are two to take a look at, and they include video samples so you can gauge the sound and the dexterity needed.

https://www.songbirdocarina.com/index.p ... &Itemid=62

EDIT: There are actually two video samples available for the above, and the first one you'll see appears to be out of stock at a glance. This is a quick link to the one in stock.

http://www.stlocarina.com/j10.html

Yes this is why I said avoid anything made by the company First Act. They sell guitars in Toys R Us for about $100 or so...they are junk!

Add Nova that SEARS sells, I work at a store that has sold alot of cheap insturments and have made a few repairs to them, some guitars still had the penciled numbers for where the posison markers were to be installed and were never sanded off.

There are good insturments to be had at low prices, a well picked guitar for $150-225 plus a $30 set-up (i'm thinking Canadian prices, USA ones are usually much less) can be a great guitar to learn on and have some fun. Just keep in mind that most of the student models are not too great and should be steered clear from and more so arn't designed for dyspraxic people like us, i'd suggest making a trip to the local music store and trying a few for comfort and asking advice/explaining your situation to the washed up 1980's rocker that usually runs those types of stores as they will likely know.

Classified ads can be a great place to get a deal if you know what your looking for, pawn shops I hear can be good aswell although I have not been in one for meny years and making deals is not my thing(thanks to my ASD).