When it comes to children learning to play guitar there is a size guitar that would be best for a child to use when taking guitar lessons. A full-sized guitar may be too big for many children to start with. It is important that an appropriate size instrument be used during a child’s guitar lessons so that they learn to play guitar correctly.
Playing a guitar that is the incorrect size for a student will lead the student to compromise good technic.
In this article we will show you the different guitar size options that can be used for a child’s guitar lessons. Ultimately, a student should still go in to be sized for which guitar would be most appropriate for them to use for their lessons.
How Guitars are Sized
The size of a guitar is measured against a “standard” guitar. A standard guitar is what a full size guitar is commonly called. Anything smaller than that is listed as: 1/2 size, 1/4 size, 3/4 size etc. These smaller guitars allow for students to be able to wrap their arms around these instruments better in order to have better mobility for playing their instruments with good technic.
If good technic is executed well on a guitar that is the appropriate size for the student, the technical concepts will remain solid and steady for when a student grows up through to a full-size. The saddest thing to see is when a student almost has to “relearn” techincal execution because of poor habits created from using a guitar that was too big or small for them.
In this article we will also include the ukulele and the guitalele which can also be considered when choosing the right starting instrument for you child or student.
Ukulele & Guitalele
The Ukulele is different as an instrument from a guitar. Not because of its smaller measurements but because it only has 4 strings. A standard guitar has 6 strings. Of all the guitar instruments we are bringing to this article, the ukulele is the simplest concept due to the number of strings along with its portability.
The guitalele is also very portable but it has the standard guitar set of 6 strings. The guitalele however is not a small guitar. The name was created by Yamaha, who makes musical instruments. The idea was to create an instrument that was part ukulele and part guitar. For this reason, the guialele looks like a guitar but sounds like a ukulele.
A guitalele’s tuning is not the same as a standard guitar. For one thing, all the strings play at a higher pitch than a guitar. This makes it more difficult to sing with than a regular guitar. And you can’t just switch the strings out on a guitalele for small strings meant for guitar. So these are factors to consider about this instrument.
Now to the traditional guitars!
1/4 Size Guitar
As in its name, the 1/4 size is 1/4 the size of a standard, full-sized guitar. It’s mostly highly recommended for guitar lessons for children around 5 years of age and under.
1/2 Size Guitar
Yes, again, the name suggests that this guitar is half the size of a standard guitar. It is a guitar that is most suited for children between the ages of 5-8.
3/4 Size Guitar
This particular guitar is most suited for kids between the ages of 8-12. It’s alllllmost the size of a standard guitar but not quite as big.
In Summary
Here is an image to summarize the different guitar sizes and their age appropriate student groups. Keep in mind that this does leave out the ukulele and guitalele as other options.
