After two failed attempts at music lessons for your son Joey, you decide to take the advice of the Music House community: Hold off on lessons and just get some inexpensive instruments to have available at home for Joey to explore on his own. The idea is that by familiarizing himself with a variety of instruments, Joey will be better equipped to know which one he wants to learn.

Over the period of a few months you acquire a used keyboard that works well enough, then a ukulele and a soprano recorder, and a little, not-too-loud drum. The stage is set for Joey to discover whether he is a plunker, blower, strummer or tapper before committing to study one instrument formally.

Joey shows interest in each new instrument for a few days or weeks. After that, long periods of time go by where he seems to forget the instruments altogether. When he does pay attention to them, Joey’s experiments appear random rather than directional. On the keyboard, he plays clusters of high notes and low notes, pokes at the black keys, tries out the sustaining pedal. With the guitar, he seems more interested in figuring out how it works than how to play it: experimenting with the tuners, holding strings down in different places. On the recorder he half sings, half toots a rhythm on one note. Three months have gone by and Joey is not showing a clear preference for a particular instrument or activity. 

At this point you have a choice to make. For example, you could:

-Store the instruments and try again when Joey is older
-Look for a teacher who can guide you with Joey’s exploration
-Encourage and remind Joey to interact with the instruments
-Give the exploration more time

What would you do?