Beginner Guitars For Kids Age 6 and Above

Where do you start to shop for a young kid's guitar? Young kids can play the guitar really well with the right instrument. An early start needs the right instrument to ensure success! What should you look for in your kid's first guitar? Perhaps I can help? In my experience as a guitar teacher, the wrong guitar choice can be disastrous. Here is a good selection of the best value guitars for kids aged 6 and above.

Intro image is my own graphic.

I gave this some thought and knowing from experience how parents give in to pester power, I have put a page together that you can check out with your young child. The guitars have been chosen for small size and nylon strings as well as price and appearance. They are cheap beginner guitars, but look good and they are playable too.

I have used these instruments in whole class teaching settings and found they are reliable, durable and sweet toned. I have yet to find one that had an unplayable action or a buzz. Kids will love the assortment of bright colours that Valencia do. Most are available in 1/2 and 3/4 size, so if you don't see it here, please browse further. I was quite taken with the Panda guitar myself - I would have loved that as a little kid!

In the whole class tuition project I was involved in, we used these Valencia guitars almost exclusively. We had a mixture of half and three quarter sizes so smaller children did not have to struggle. As class instruments, we went for the classic finish, but they are available in a range of child friendly colours and designs too.

Here is a selection of 1/2 and 3/4 size acoustic guitars suitable for children. The colour range is good, but more importantly, the nylon strings are easier on little fingers!

Barcelona do a whole range of attractive beginner guitars as shown here.Yes, you can get the standard wooden acoustic but young children love the bright colours and high gloss of these child friendly models. Barcelona make cheap guitars in a very wide range of colors and styles and these guitars for kids are well worth checking out, in my experience the action is fairly easy for little fingers to press the strings down effectively and they are quite robust when carried to and from school.

The biggest problem buying a kid's first guitar is combining the "chilled" with the "child". There is simply no way a six year old can cope with a full size acoustic, steel strings are painful for little fingers too. So, where to find beginner guitars in bright colors that are kind to little fingers?

These smaller Barcelona guitars look great. They have a durable gloss finish and I know from experience that they are easy to play with a child friendly action and decent intonation.

A guitar package has the advantage of bringing together all those other items a young player needs, guitar case, easy to read tuner and spare strings are all useful additions! Yamaha guitars are very reliable and we have used Valencia guitars extensively too. Both are excellent value instruments.

Half and Three Quarter Size Guitars can be fun! I hope you have enjoyed looking through what is available. It is important to remember that a child needs an easy guitar to play, but if it looks cool then that helps too!