guitar for a 2 year old?

[irmcdermott]

A ukelele would be cool. I've seen a few companies that are making "guitaleles," six string hybrid guitar/ukelele. Never played one, and they are more expensive then an average ukelele you could find. Not sure I'd want to drop $100 on something my 2 year old could potentially put his foot through, haha.

[alanp]

I'm starting to lean heavily towards a ukelele. Anyone here know anything about them?

My mental image when someone mentions "ukelele" is a six hundred pound Pacific Islander playing a wee, tiny little instrument. People have done very cool things with them, it's just hard for me to lose that mental image.

[Willybomb]

Whatever you do, don't get a 1/4 size guitar.  Go for 1/2 or above.  I haven't found a 1/4 that actually has decent enough hardware to make it possible to tune (I teach guitar full time, so I've seen a lot of well meaning parents and grandparents buying guitars that are essentially junk for kids to learn on).  I find that the cheap 1/4 guitars are made for the kids to grow out of.  There's no point.

For a 2 year old, a uke is a good idea.  Not saying it's not possible as all kids are different, but I don't normally teach any under 5 years old privately, and in the schools I teach in they have to be grade 1 or above (~6 years old, with a year of school under their belts in Australia).

[thesameage]

My 2 year old is probably unteachable, but he needs something that's not a total toy that will stay in tune!

[chromesphere]

I don't know if I would spend much over $10 on a guitar for my 2 year old. It would end up in fragments. Something plastic ;-)

[muddyfox]

My 2 year old is probably unteachable, but he needs something that's not a total toy that will stay in tune!

My 6yr old is completely unteachable, on all fronts except maybe dancing and doing cartwheels...

[Muadzin]

I don't think anyone is unteachable, they just need a teaching method measured towards them instead of the one size fits all method most schools use.

[muddyfox]

Yeah, that sounds good on paper and I mostly agree but in RL, there are some things that no amount of procedure-tailoring/bribing/parental-approval/handholding/punishment will ever make happen until the kid is good and ready to take it in, come hell or high water. 

[alanp]

Growing up, Dad played guitar at church, but... it was something Dad did, you know?

At high school, we were given the option of learning guitar... and shown sheets of chords, and told we'd have to memorize them. Guess what happened.

I only got interested in guitar after getting into Oasis and Zakk Wylde.

[thesameage]

I ended up ordering a concert sized ukelele for the family. It's the mid-sized one that the kids will be able to play but can grow into and won't be too small for the adults. Comes on monday!

If anyone is interested, I got it from mimsukes.com. I talked to Mim for a while (after doing some research) and she helped me pick out just the right one for us. In fact, she recc'd the one that was $20 less than what I was looking at because she thinks it's a better instrument. All of her sales come with a full setup, as well, which you're not going to get from GC or Amazon (which sells a ton of Ukes).