Guitar or Uklulele? Which one should I choose for my young child?

 Is it better for my child to learn to play the ukulele first and then move on to the guitar when he is older and bigger?It is a very good question. Thanks for asking. As it happens the ukulele is a complete instrument in its own right. It has its own unique set of 4 strings, each one named with different letters. Being a small instrument it may seem that it is perfect for young children to hold. However the uke is not a small guitar and a guitar is not a big ukulele.Guitars have 6 strings, named differently to the ukulele strings. This means that when we place our fingers to form any chord on the guitar the shape of the chord will be different to the same chord on the uke. This is most unfortunate because it means that if your child learns to play the uke first, and then goes on to learn guitar, he will have to start from scratch and learn a completely different set of string names and chord shapes.There are some small advantages in learning uke before guitar as a young child but they are limited. Firstly, the uke is cheaper and easier to pack into a school bag, or move around without damaging it. In this way young children can learn to care for an inexpensive instrument before being responsible for a larger guitar. Secondly, there are quite a lot of two finger chords that can be played successfully on the uke as opposed to the guitar which demands a larger hand and finger stretch to produce clean chords. In my estimation this is where the advantages of learning a uke before a guitar start and finish. The downside of learning uke as a young child is that the very notes we want to play first are the hardest to press down on as they come on the first fret which is at the tightest part of the strings.Unfortunately there are limited guitar-like stringed instruments on the market that are easy for very young children to learn.My recommendation is to purchase a children's guitar which has a good tone, is "fitted" to your child's size, and has a manageable "action". This is the distance between the finger board and the strings, making it as easy as possible to play the frets at the tuning end of the fret board (or neck). Give me a call on  0418 563 226, for more information and to enrol in lessons. Your first lesson is free, so take the opportunity to see whether your child would prefer guitar or uke. You can read more detailed information on guitar sizes here.