My 8 year old daughter will be 9 in February, and has been asking for a drum kit for over a year now. To kind of make sure she was/remained interested, I got her a practice pad and some sticks a while back, then set up a bucket as a floor tom. She played a lot for a while and keeps asking about getting a kit, so I’m gonna get her one for XMAS - any ideas on how to approach this would be appreciated.

12 YO daughter wants a violin, so if anyone has ideas on this, also TIA.

Budget is 300-400 each for these, used is OK and I’m open to any input.

Thanks

jason from volo wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 7:40 pm Do you have visions of your daughter joining school band as a percussionist? Or just drumming for fun?

If band percussionist, might want to consider something like this:

https://www.guitarcenter.com/Pearl/PL91 ... ng-Cart.gc

As far as violins go, my daughters both played in orchestra when they were much younger, but rented their instruments initially through the school, which ended up being a good idea because both ended up switching to band (yay!). I’m afraid I don’t have much advice about buying one.

Happy Xmas shopping!

One thing we found out when renting a trumpet for our son is that the rental included any needed repairs, which turned out to be a good thing (also, it's though a local music store we wanted to support). We also have a drum set, which we acquired from Craigslist. We got what seems like a pretty nice Premier set for about your budget because the owner had moved out and his parents really wanted the garage space back. You might scan Craigslist for nearby suburban areas if you don't live in one in hopes of finding this kind of situation.

The classic bells and practice pad setup is great for the band route. I did that around age 10 or 11. A few years later I started getting into rock and roll and got a shitty drum kit. That was a long time ago but I do recall there not being a lot of transferable skills from school band when trying to work on limb independence. However,I would recommend at least understanding music on a rhythm level before sitting down on a kit. It’s hard to be like “kick on 1&3, snare on 2&4” to someone who hasn’t internalized counting. Your daughter may be there now, I’m not sure.

If you are learning drums, it’s gonna be kick, hi hat and snare most of the time. Hell it’s those three even if you’re an accomplished player. A full kit MAY be a distraction (it is to my 7yo son!), so keeping it stripped down could help with focus. The other thing with fewer pieces is you can fit kick/snare/hh tighter, which may be more comfortable for kids.

So great you have a daughter playing drums! The world needs more of them!

Never too young to get deep into modular synthesis.

Kniferide wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 9:13 am Never too young to get deep into modular synthesis.

wear earplugs!





rental instrument/school program is good idea

scrotescape wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 9:36 am

Kniferide wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 9:13 am Never too young to get deep into modular synthesis.

wear earplugs!

I was kinda making a joke, but there are a lot of cool fun options out there that introduce kids to synths.

https://dato.mu/

https://blipblox.com/

stuff like that. Even a Volca could be cool for like 10+ years probably. Cool thing about synths is you can give your kids headphones and not have to hear what they are doing. Try that with a saxamaphone.

Not to compare her to a kid of course, but coming from a similar place, I just picked up a Yamaha DD-5 as a Christmas present for my partner.

If doing the bell kit thing, try the Gooodwill auction site (shopogoodwill.com) - they're regularly available there (search xylophone) for less than what our local music store was charging for a one year rental.

It's probably a good place to look for a student violin as well. If going for a drumset, depending on where you are located, it's not uncommon to find a pretty great starter set for 4-500$ on craigslist.

synths/oscillators can have more energy than meets the ear and could cause hearing damage--burn holes in ones hearing.

be the fuddy duddy and push hearing conservation

Where are you located?
This was the type of craigslist deal I was talking about

https://newjersey.craigslist.org/msg/d/ ... 57398.html