Any parents out there -- if you've got a musical kid (and maybe even NOT), and you're trying to entice your kid away from video games and the computer, have I got a great tool for you!
We just bought our 12 year old something called the Digitech JamMan. There are other brands of this product out there -- it's basically called either a looper or a phrase sampler. This is a tool used by musicians (we just saw kids at an orchestra concert use it very deftly!), amateur and professional. I first witnessed it's use while watching Imogen Heap (british musician extraordinaire) on YouTube. It's a recording tool that will record a song phrase/guitar riff/piano tune, etc., and put it on a continuous loop (hence the name "looper"), but ALSO you can layer the loops. Essentially, you could, as a single person, create a choir, or if you are musically adept at various instruments, you could create your own band with only one person!
The reason why this is such a great tool is that not only does your child get immediate positive feedback through hearing his/her own recordings, but it stimulates creativity, is a viable substitute for the computer/video game (if your child is interested in it), and is such a relatively novel piece of machinery that other kids will be more than interested in it. I can see inviting multiple friends over, and all of them creating music/sounds together.
One of the reasons why we bought this relatively expensive machine ($249-$299) was also because we could, as a family, create together. As we speak, our 17 year old daughter is using the machine with our 12 year old son. With the wide discrepancy in age, these two don't often have common interests, and so they don't usually "hang" together. But tonight, they've been together for over an hour, creating music together. This is worth it's weight in GOLD.
I would love to hear other's experiences with this interesting machine.
Kris
08 May 2008, 6:12 pm
