Critique
One of my son's friends turned three years old a few weeks ago. At his birthday party there were all of the other parents with their kids and I got into a conversation with a man who has a three year old and a six year old. These little kids play the violin. He told me about a UT program for teaching strings to toddlers. I do my best not to compare my boy to others, but these things get stuck in my subconscious mind and start rolling around.
Ian turned six on Wednesday. We've been having fun with GarageBand making noises with my Fender plugged into their cool amp effects. I asked him if he wanted a guitar for his birthday and he said yes, so I decided to buy him one. Of course, he is small, so I thought I would look for something appropriate for his age.
I went to Toys R Us and bought this thing called First Act Discovery. It is a small electric guitar with an X shaped body. Pretty cool looking. The neck is about standard width, but the whole thing is shorter than a regular guitar with a small body and a built in speaker. I knew the sound wouldn't be that great, but what the heck. I wanted something small. It was on sale for $52.00.
Ian tore through the wrapping paper and looked at the guitar and smiled and then grabbed the next present and started tearing that open. He also got a soccer ball, some art supplies, clothes and two remote control 1/24 scale Lamborghinis his grandparents sent him. So he never really looked at the guitar, but despite the Lamborghinis, there is another reason for that.
The first thing I did was tune the guitar and this took a while because the tuning gears did not mesh perfectly. I was finally able to get each string to stay in tune.
Then I just tried a simple D chord. Awful. I expected a tinny speaker sound, but this was different. The chord was not in tune. No matter how many times I tuned the strings, that D chord never sounded right.
Is there a reason they can't make a kids guitar that will sound right? Maybe they figure that parents will just think, "Well, little Johnny is going to sound bad when he's learning, and that's the reason."
My wife made such a face when I played that chord that Ian said he didn't even want to try and play the guitar. I'm taking it back.
I asked Ian the next day if he still wants a guitar, and he said yes, so I'm going to take him with me when we return it and maybe we can find something that will sound good and he will like. Stay tuned.
Ian turned six on Wednesday. We've been having fun with GarageBand making noises with my Fender plugged into their cool amp effects. I asked him if he wanted a guitar for his birthday and he said yes, so I decided to buy him one. Of course, he is small, so I thought I would look for something appropriate for his age.
I went to Toys R Us and bought this thing called First Act Discovery. It is a small electric guitar with an X shaped body. Pretty cool looking. The neck is about standard width, but the whole thing is shorter than a regular guitar with a small body and a built in speaker. I knew the sound wouldn't be that great, but what the heck. I wanted something small. It was on sale for $52.00.
Ian tore through the wrapping paper and looked at the guitar and smiled and then grabbed the next present and started tearing that open. He also got a soccer ball, some art supplies, clothes and two remote control 1/24 scale Lamborghinis his grandparents sent him. So he never really looked at the guitar, but despite the Lamborghinis, there is another reason for that.
The first thing I did was tune the guitar and this took a while because the tuning gears did not mesh perfectly. I was finally able to get each string to stay in tune.
Then I just tried a simple D chord. Awful. I expected a tinny speaker sound, but this was different. The chord was not in tune. No matter how many times I tuned the strings, that D chord never sounded right.
Is there a reason they can't make a kids guitar that will sound right? Maybe they figure that parents will just think, "Well, little Johnny is going to sound bad when he's learning, and that's the reason."
My wife made such a face when I played that chord that Ian said he didn't even want to try and play the guitar. I'm taking it back.
I asked Ian the next day if he still wants a guitar, and he said yes, so I'm going to take him with me when we return it and maybe we can find something that will sound good and he will like. Stay tuned.
posted by Will Alkin at 8:46 AM
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