Beginning guitar and keyboard?

[acmom]

My kids have both put musical instruments on their wish lists....DD (7) wants a keyboard (and would love to take piano lessons) and DS (5) wants a guitar. Any recommendations for either?

-For the keyboard, I would like a decent enough quality one that she could try some lessons with it (my parents live in town and have a piano so she could practice on that at their house too), but I don't want to spend a fortune until I know she really likes it and will continue it.

- For the guitar, it doesn't have to be fancy at all (no lessons planned at this point, more just for fun) but DD had one from ToysRUs that immediately broke and was never able to be fixed, so I want something better than that!

Thanks!!

[KrisM]

DD plays this guitar http://www.amazon.com/Hohner-HW03-String-Acoustic-Guitar/dp/B001IZIFGW/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1447683602&sr=8-4&keywords=hohner+guitar

She took lessons at school for a couple of years and enjoys it. DH plays guitar well and he likes this guitar well enough.

[willow33]

DD just started piano lessons about 2 months ago. We bought a Casio keyboard from Costco for her. We wanted to make sure she was going to stick with it and enjoy it before investing more $ into something more expensive.

I think it's this one, but I bought it in store: http://www.costco.com/Casio-LK-170V-61-Key-Lighted-Keyboard-Bundle.product.100123007.html

[kali]

We used a basic digital keyboard that was okay for DS for a few months, but he got frustrated and his piano teacher urged us to get him a weighted keyboard with the full 88 keys.

We just bought this keyboard for DS from Costco: http://www.costco.com/.product.100218546.html. It is on sale for $399 and includes a solid stand and bench. Amazon has it for about the same price, but without stand/bench. And without Costco return policy :).

The reviews on Amazon are excellent (search for "Yamaha P45").

[WatchingThemGrow]

My 7&8 year olds are both doing piano lessons after completing Kindermusik Music for the Young Child. That was an awesome program that really prepared them to read and play music so easily. When asking around locally for piano teachers, we learned that some teachers won't take the students if they don't have a real piano in the home to practice on. Some were okay with keyboards, but maybe do some research beforehand.

We ended up paying a couple hundred $ to get a family piano from a relative who no longer wanted it. Several friends have gotten them the same way or even free from CL. We did have to pay to get it tuned, but it's a Baldwin Acrosonic and seems to hold its tune well. (I'm not musical at ALL, but I was upset my mom rented a piano month to month when I was 7 and didn't give me more time to develop into a musician.)

Our DS wanted to play guitar, and the teacher we got said that under 8 hands aren't really strong or big enough to play a real guitar that well. We were fortunate that our neighbor was selling a Fender Squier Mini electric guitar. We got an amp to go with it, and he did lessons on that for a couple months. He decided it was too hard and that piano would be a better fit for now. So...both of our big kids do a weekly piano lesson inside our home, and it works out great. The 3rd kid is still doing the kindermusik class and learning glockenspiel, dulcimer, and recorder. We do need to practice more, though!

Oh...We were looking at that same Costco deal posted above for my FIL who has dementia and is not doing well. We ended up asking to borrow one from the neighborhood listserve and ended up getting this formerly $800 version from a friend. I don't know the "quality" of the weighted keys, etc. but FIL is enjoying it. Maybe it was the 88key version of this though... http://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-YPG-235-76-Key-Portable-Premium/dp/B003FRMRC4/ref=sr_1_1?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1448103803&sr=1-1&keywords=yamaha+ypg-235+88
It's nice! Second hand may be the way to go!