The Right Instrument for Your Child: The Key to Unlocking Musical Potential

When you want your child to learn an instrument, but don't know which one, first ask your child. Sometimes they know exactly what they want to play! Often they don't know, or want to play many instruments, and this book can be a useful guide in helping them choose. The authors take into account the physical aspects of each instrument (e.g. trumpet takes a great deal of physical energy to play) as well as personality issues (e.g. a "daydreamer" will tend to be happier playing flute or harp). As a beginning band teacher, I have used this book for years to guide students to the "right" instrument. It's not foolproof--if a child is determined to play saxophone, all the persuasion in the world won't change their minds! But for many kids, knowing why they might prefer one instrument over another can help them make a decision. The best advice this book has is to narrow the list down to a few choices, then take your child to a music store and let them try the instruments before deciding. Most music stores are happy to do this, as it increases their chance of a sale. A child will usually find one instrument more comfortable to play thatn the others, and will feel more confident about their decision.

As parents, we generally encourage our children to either a., learn to play the piano, or b., learn to play the same instrument that we did as children. Shaky strategies, but then parents don't have much help in this regard. This book is the help we've been looking for. Clearly organized and lucidly written, this book helps a parent match instrument to child based on common-sense criteria. Based on a long career working with children and instruments, the author shows you how to choose an instrument that suits your child's physique, personality, social style and intellect. The book completely takes the mystery out of choosing an instrument for your child, and prepares you to make this important (and expensive!) decision with confidence. At our house, we're two-for-two choosing instruments for our daughters. Thanks to this book, they practice without being asked and love their instruments--because they picked the right ones!

_The right instrument for your child_ (together its companion book for adults, _You can make music!_, now sadly out of print) has a very simple premise: if you had music lessons as a child, and gave up because you were "no good at music", the real reason is not that you were tone-deaf, or lacked talent, or whatever else you were told, but that you were made to play the wrong instrument, or the right instrument at the wrong time. This book says that almost all children have it in them to play an instrument, but the instrument must be chosen to suit the child. That is obvious, you may say. It is easy to see that a shy, introverted child is never going to succeed on the trumpet. But it is less obvious that a child with poor eyesight is going to have difficulty with the piano, because its notation requires you to read notes for up to ten fingers, in two different notations, all at once. And less obvious still that a child who is easily discouraged should not attempt classical guitar, whose music is as hard to read as it is to play.Ben-Tovim and Boyd go beyond the anecdotal and provide a comprehensive way to match the instrument to the child: Can the child cope with the physical demands of playing the instrument? The mental demands? And does the character of the instrument, and the sort of music you can play on it, match the child's personality? They also take age into account, because all instruments are built for adults, and some are just too big for younger children: their arms aren't long enough, or their hands aren't wide enough. (Only violin, cello and guitar come in small sizes.)This is not a stuffy book. It does cover all of the orchestral instruments, but recognizes that some children will be happier in a band or a rock group or a folk group, than they ever would be in an orchestra. And that some children don't want to play music in a group at all, but alone.The coverage is comprehensive, even extending to instruments such as oboe and French horn, that are (in the book's words), 'self-selecting': they are so difficult that only children who absolutely know that that is what they want to play, will choose them. The book's coverage of these instruments is, I suppose, more for the benefit of mystified parents than anything else.Many music schools insist that one size fits all. My local music school, for example, insists that children will play the recorder for a year or two and then move to piano. But to a robust 11-year-old with lots of spare energy, even a few months of recorder lessons are likely to be torture. (You have to whisper into a recorder: blow hard, and it just squawks.) The same energetic child might be very happy playing cornet or trumpet. The authors take the opposite view: _no_ size fits all.This is also a practical book. Apartment-dwellers have to be able to practice without driving the neighbors mad. Few ordinary family budgets will stretch to a bassoon or a harp. A baritone horn player needs to have a brass band close by. And