My 4 year old wants to play the bagpipes

[JimB]

Get him a chanter and some lessons, and in a year or so I might be able to do as well as him

[Mr. Woolery]

4 is awfully young to start, but my daughter was 4 when she started. Almost 5, but still. Some comments and suggestions from a dad whose kids (now 7 and 9) both are taking lessons:

Line up the instructor before you even start to shop for a chanter. If you can't find a teacher, you are out of luck no matter what. Look for a teacher who has experience with kids, even if his students don't tend to place in the top of the competitions. Right now, you are giving your child a chance to learn to play an instrument. Some of the "best" teachers get their results through rigorous work that weeds out a lot of folks who would have been good parade pipers but just can't hack the regimen of an ex-military pipe major. If your son loves the pipes, he will excel as far as you give him the chance to.

Don't expect fast progress at this age. Learning coordination of the fingers is a slow process for kids this age. What you are doing is building the concepts and the discipline for the first year or two. After a while, it all comes together and he'll be playing pipes with sudden leaps of ability. My son (age 9, been learning for 3.5 years) told me last night that he can look at the notes and his fingers know what to do without thinking about it. Took him longer than it took me, but all of a sudden, he's sight-reading his music instead of translating it and working it out slowly.

Get a kid-size chanter. John Walsh makes them, as does Piper's Choice. Call a decent bagpipe outfitter (get a referral from whoever you pick as a teacher) and ask for their suggestions. Just get a poly chanter for now, but consider a blackwood chanter as an upgrade when the child is old enough for a full-size. My kids both responded really well to that incentive. Also, proper care of a wooden practice chanter teaches kids how to care for a musical instrument and that will apply to their eventual bagpipes.

Get two spare reeds for the practice chanter. An adult can make his reeds last for years. Kids end up pulling them apart in no time. I'm now making my own practice chanter reeds and when I helped my daughter make one for her chanter, she suddenly didn't have the reeds falling apart any more! Part of that taking care concept.

Set aside a practice time every day with specific and defined goals. This means play one page of exercises, twice through the scale, and whatever else the teacher assigns, every single day. This is harder on the parents than on the kids just because you have to be right there enforcing the discipline. I can't even start to say how important this is. Some teachers will actually fire their students if they don't practice regularly. If you teach for the joy of teaching this instrument, you get sick and tired of folks saying they have too many other things to do. For most of us, this just isn't true. In my house, the kids can't watch TV or play video games until homework and music practice are done.

Don't get full pipes before your kid's teacher tells you to. Instead, put some money in a jar every week until it is time to get them and you'll have most of the price already. I suggest just dumping your pocket change into the jar every night. Surprising how much money that adds up to in time! We tend to get about $30 a month by only spending paper money and keeping the coins.

Avoid the temptation to buy every gadget that promises to make the process easier. You don't need Kitchen pipes right now. Perhaps in the future you will find them a good way for Junior to practice, but only get them if the teacher says it is a good idea.

Consider taking lessons with your child. If it is a dad/son thing you both have the potential to do it longer and better. And you will have that bonding thing going on. And you will know when he's practicing something wrong. That helps a lot.

If he wants to play Scottish pipes, don't confuse him with a tin whistle at this time. Different fingering, different blowing dynamics. Get him a teacher and get him working on the scale.

I think there's no reason kids can't learn to play the pipes just fine. Give him a chance and see what does with it! But part of giving him that chance is making a commitment yourself. Are you ready for that? If not, just buy him one of the "child bagpipes" that has the dummy drones and let him goof around on it. If you are ready to help him learn the real instrument, I think that's great.

-Patrick

[Piper]

My youngest grandson (now 8) has expressed an interest in playing the pipes for the last couple of years. I bought a child sized chanter the year he was born, just on the off chance that one of my grandkids (11 of them) might want to try the pipes. For the last couple of years he's enjoyed playing with the chanter, but I've only recently started actual instruction. He can play a scale fairly reliably, and we're shortly going to move on from there. I think the key to teaching kids anything is to keep it fun and interesting. I have of set of reel (or 1/2 size, or 3/4 size) pipes that my wife brought home from a trip to Switzerland (?). They're most likely of mid-Eastern manufacture, but they don't sound bad. He's been told they're his to use as soon as he's able, until he outgrows them. At that point he'll be given a set of his own. Hopefully he'll keep up with it.

[Nervous Jock]

Would just like to thank everyone for the advice and support

[westie97]

My 5 year old has also expressed interest and I discussed with my instructor. He said he nor the other instructors he knows would recommend starting until they were 8-9 years old.

started when he was 4. Go for it if he has expressed interest. I wish my parentswould have listened to me when I expressed interest at an early age.

[Downix]

started when he was 4. Go for it if he has expressed interest. I wish my parentswould have listened to me when I expressed interest at an early age.

Same here. I've paid attention to my sons interests (dancing, playing instruments, etc) and so far, he's stuck to dancing throughout, even as other things have faded into the background (the whistle now collects dust).