Great Gifts For Beginner Musicians
Gift ideas and stocking stuffers for musicians that encourage practice and improvement on their instrument.
When going shopping for Christmas think a moment about getting a gift that will encourage your young musican to practice and have more fun at the same time.
Musicians are a strange lot when it comes to gifts for Christmas. Don't bother getting your musician a new sweater or pair of underwear. To help encourage a young (or old) musician to practice and improve at their instrument you should consider gifts that help the musician enjoy playing. Here are a few examples of excellent Christmas gifts for the musician in your family. Best of all, all of these gifts can be found for less than $30.00 both online or at your local music store.
Music Instrument Polishing Cloth
For any instrument (including drums) a polishing cloth is a great accessory to carry in the instrument case. Your musician will use it to keep the metal clean and shiny between practice sessions. Best of all they are very inexpensive and make great stocking stuffers!
Electronic Tuner
Tuners are not just for guitar players, and there is a great variety of styles and price ranges to choose from. For the guitarist you should look for a tuner made specifically for the guitar, preferably with inputs for the guitar to plug directly in to. For other instruments you need to make sure the tuner has a microphone pickup on it so that it can hear what the musician is playing. An analog tuning meter is a better choice for most people, although digital meters work well too. Make sure that the tuner also has some way to tell the musician what note they are playing. It should have a way to display every note in the musical alphabet (A-G) as well as sharps or flats.
Flavored Reeds
For woodwind players reeds are a great stocking stuffer. Woodwind musicans go through a lot of reeds, especially as beginners, and the new flavored reeds from Flavoreeds.com come in a variety of flavors for clarinets and saxophones. Make sure you buy the size that is correct for their instrument. Most beginners start on soprano clarinets and alto saxophones.
Collapsable Instrument Stand
Musicians want to take care of their instruments, but one of the most common ways those instruments get damaged is by someone or something knocking the instrument off of a chair or stepping on it accidentally. Music instrument stands are great ways to prevent accidental damage by holding the instrument in a safe position when it is not being played or held by the performer. Many brass instrument stands can fold down and fit inside the bell of the trumpet or trombone. Look for brand names like Manhasset or Mt. Vernon.
Instrument Cleaning Accessories
Many student model instruments do not come with the basic necessities for cleaning the instrument. For woodwind players a good quality clarinet or saxophone swab is used for drying out the inside of the instrument after each practice session. For brass players a cleaning snake is an absolute necessity for cleaning the inside of the instrument's tubes. For an easy (and fun) way to clean the instrument between practice sessions, get a bottle of "Spit Wads." These little balls are placed in the mouthpiece reciever of a brass instrument and then blown through them to give the tubes a quick cleaning.
